Licences and Fair Use

License Agreements and Guidelines

The INFLIBNET Consortium subscribes to thousands of electronic journals including full-text electronic resources and bibliographic databases for its member institutions. All electronic resources available through the Consortium are governed by license agreements. The terms and conditions for using these resources are spelled out in license agreements that are signed with each publisher by the INFLIBNET Consortium on behalf of its member institutions. The licenses for electronic resources impose two types of restrictions on its usage, namely i) who can use these resources; and ii) how the resources can be used. The first restriction defines authorized users for e-resources, which generally includes students, faculty, staff and onsite visitors of a subscribing institution. The second restriction deals with how these resources can be used. It is the responsibility of individual users to ensure that e-resources are used for personal, educational and research purposes only. Most of the agreements entered into by the Consortium and publishers specify items that users are prohibited to do.