Are there acceptable use guidelines for electronic resources provided by UAB Libraries?
Answer
Access to electronic resources provided by UAB Libraries is governed by license agreements which restrict use to the UAB community. It is the responsibility of each user to ensure that he or she uses these products only for individual, non-commercial use. User are also prohibited from systematically downloading, distributing, or retaining substantial portions of information and/or content retrieved from a database.
Many licenses forbid downloading contents of entire issues of a given journal title. Publishers keep track of patterns of use and may disable online access when they suspect misuse in the form of systematic downloading. Systematic or bulk downloading includes the use of software such as scripts, agents, or robots to download an entire journal volume or multiple articles in a single journal issue. In some instances, publishers have temporarily withdrawn access to their journal content to the UAB community because of suspected bulk downloading.