Electronic Resources Access Policy

Access, use, and reproduction of the electronic journals, databases, and other resources made available through the Ithaca College Library is governed by contracts or license agreements between the college and publishers or vendors. License agreements may impose greater restrictions on use than does copyright law. This library policy is consistent with Section 2.10 Technology Use Policy and Section 2.32 Copyright Policy and Guidelines in the Ithaca College Policy Manual and is applicable to all students, employees, affiliates, and any other individuals utilizing Ithaca College resources.

Remote and on-campus use of these resources is limited to current students, faculty, and staff of the College. Unfortunately, current contracts prohibit use of licensed library electronic resources (databases, ebooks, eserials) by alumni and retirees.

In using licensed electronic resources, all users must

• limit uses to non-commercial, educational, or personal research purposes.
• safeguard institutional access to resources by not sharing their username and password.

In general, users may

• print, download, or quote limited amounts of information (with proper attribution).
• copy an article for personal use in teaching or research.
• create a link, without an image or thumbnail, to a journal article on a college or external web site.

Users are prohibited from all of the following:

• Systematically downloading large amounts of information
• Posting any copy of a published article to another server (e.g., a Canvas site or a departmental web site). Posting a link to an article is permissible, as it will require a current campus email account to gain access to the text.
• Distributing copies of material to any individuals or groups outside Ithaca College
• Selling, or distributing for commercial purposes, materials to any individuals, groups, institutions, or organizations
• Sharing their username and password
• Performing an analysis, or any other function, using artificial intelligent (“AI”) or text and data mining (“TDM”) tools, on any licensed library resource or content from any licensed library resource
• Uploading copyright protected works from a licensed library resource to any third-party platforms, including genAI and social reading tools

Users should be aware that publishers and the college monitor use levels of electronic resources to verify compliance with licensing agreements. Breach of license by a single user may cause a publisher to suspend the college’s access without warning and/or result in the user having their access to electronic resources suspended.

Users are also accountable for respecting guidelines described in the college’s all college computer and network use policy.

Many licenses do not allow use of their material in combination with public and/or private versions of AI or TDM tools (including to train an algorithm, test, process, analyze, generate output and/or develop any form of artificial intelligence tool). To inquire about permission to use any licensed IC Library resource with an AI or TDM tool, or if you have any questions about a specific use or a specific license agreement, please contact Research Services at reference@ithaca.edu.