Acceptable Use of Electronic Information Resources Policy

UC's Libraries provide access to various electronic information resources, including access to local, national, and international sources of information including periodical indexes, on-line catalogs, CD-ROM’s, full text databases and the Internet.

Access to all information resources, including the online resources at University Libraries, is a privilege and must be treated as such by all users of the system to protect the rights of the community. These resources are available for individual educational and research purposes only.

University Libraries recognize that electronic communications and computer resources are no different than any other form of communication or resource available at the University. Users of this medium are bound by but not limited to:

• Federal, state and local laws as well as all University Rules. Use for illegal, commercial, or solely personal purposes is prohibited.
• Compliance with all University Rules regarding sexual, racial, and other forms of harassment. University is committed to being a racially, ethnically, and religiously heterogeneous community.
• Contractual obligations.

The following types of activities are examples of behavior that are unethical and unacceptable, and in some cases may violate state or federal law:

• attempts to alter system software or hardware configurations;
• access another individual's account, private files, or e-mail without permission of the owner; misrepresent one's identity in electronic communication;
• violate copyright and/or software agreements, violate rules or codes set by services subscribed to by the University;
• use Computing resources to threaten or harass others;
• use the University systems for commercial or profit-making purposes;
• systematically transmit (either on paper or electronically) content from these resources to anyone not involved in education or research at the University;
• use a spider or crawler program to capture data from database resources;
• disobey lab and system policies, procedures, and protocol (e.g., time limits on workstation usage);
• use University facilities or resources to violate the policies of other computer systems or organizations. upload, download, or install software for purposes of copyright violation, hacking, or unauthorized Internet communication;
• distribute unsolicited mass mailings of information (known as spamming) not directly dealing with University business, events or announcements or without authorization from the University administration.
• Users will respect the privacy of others using public access workstations.

The Internet is one of the resources available from UC Libraries. It is a global electronic network with a highly diverse user population. The University Libraries do not monitor and have no control over the information accessed through the Internet and cannot be held responsible for its content. Comments on the contents of any home page should be directed to the appropriate page authors. Internet users should bear in mind:

There are materials and other information resources that users may find controversial, inappropriate or offensive.

Not all sources on the Internet provide accurate, complete or current information. Users need to be good information consumers, questioning the validity of the information found.

University Libraries is not responsible for damages, indirect or direct, arising from a library patron’s use of Internet information resources.
Breach of Policy

Violation of any aspect of this policy may result in the loss of library and/or university privileges. The library reserves the right to:

• Monitor and/or Terminate a user’s session without notice.
• Limit the amount of time at any one sitting.
• Suspend the computer and/or library privileges of persons who violate this policy.

Databases and other electronic resources provided by purchase or lease through University Libraries are governed by the terms and conditions of the license agreement between University Libraries and the resource producer (which may be a private commercial company, professional association, or government agency).

The points above offer general guidelines for acceptable use of licensed databases. Some databases carry an online copyright notice or other detailed statement of their specific terms and conditions. A database's own statement takes precedence over these general guidelines.

If you have questions about a specific database, please consult its online notice or contact Dan Gottlieb@uc.edu