Central Library E-Resources Usage Guidelines

The Central Library subscribes to various documents for benefiting the academic community. Consortium resources and E-Shodh Shuddhi resources are governed by license agreements enacted through an MoU between the UGC-INFLIBNET Centre and the University for utilizing these resources.

The licenses for electronic resources impose two types of restrictions on usage:

  1. Who can use these resources: This defines authorized users, generally including students, faculty, staff, and onsite visitors of the University.
  2. How the resources can be used: Individual users are responsible for ensuring that e-resources are used for personal, educational, and research purposes only. Users must ensure that the use of electronic resources does not breach the terms and conditions specified in the license agreements. Licenses vary from publisher to publisher; however, the general principles are as follows:
Permitted vs Restricted Uses
Permitted for Use Restricted
  • Viewing, downloading, copying, printing, and saving a copy of search results
  • Viewing, downloading, copying, printing, and saving individual articles
  • Using e-resources for scholarly, educational, or scientific research, teaching, private study, and clinical purposes
  • Sending a copy of an article to another authorized user (i.e., current faculty, students, or staff)
  • Posting the URL to the publisher's version of the article on a class website (publisher links will allow only authorized users access)
  • Use of robots or intelligent agents to do systematic, bulk, or automatic downloading is not permitted
  • Systematic downloading or printing of entire journal issues or volumes, or large portions of other e-resources is not permitted
  • Using e-resources for commercial gain is not permitted (i.e., reselling, redistributing, or republishing licensed content)
  • Transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise making online content available to unauthorized users (i.e., sending to mailing lists or electronic bulletin boards) is not permitted
  • Posting the publisher's version or PDF of an article to an open-class website is not permitted (instead, post the URL to the article, which will allow only authorized users access)