Access to and use of electronic resources provided by McFarlin Library are governed by contractual license agreements negotiated between The University of Tulsa and publishers or vendors, as well as by U.S. Copyright Law. These contracts allow the Library to make these resources available to authorized users (i.e., currently enrolled TU students, currently employed TU faculty and staff, and, in most cases, walk-in patrons) for non-commercial, educational, scholarly, or personal research purposes only. Use of a library-licensed resource requires you to abide by the terms of these legally binding agreements.
You should also be aware that the publishers or database vendors monitor the use of their electronic resources, which are their intellectual property, in order to enforce the terms of the license agreements. Violating the terms of the license may lead a publisher or vendor to terminate The University's access to that resource without warning. Here are the things you need to do, and not do, in order to use McFarlin Library's electronic resources in a responsible manner.
DO's:
- DO limit your use to non-commercial, educational, scholarly, or personal research purposes.
- DO download only the content you need for your immediate research purpose or course assignment.
- DO give proper attribution when quoting from material; for assistance with this, please see the McFarlin Library LibGuide on Citing Sources.
- DO print or download individual articles, chapters, or other items on a limited basis.
- DO send an article or item to yourself or another authorized user (i.e., a TU student, TU faculty, or TU staff member).
DO NOT's:
- DO NOT engage in systematic downloading of the licensed content of a resource (e.g., downloading entire issues of an electronic journal, all the chapters in an electronic book (unless specifically allowed by the provider), or downloading substantial amounts of content from a database in order to create other collections of data). The use of software, including scripted searches, download accelerators, or web robots (i.e., bots) of any kind is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
- DO NOT share or distribute licensed material to persons or groups not affiliated with The University of Tulsa. Persons not affiliated with TU may access the Library's electronic resources ONLY when physically present in McFarlin Library.
- DO NOT download and post licensed material on another server, even on a course website. Instead, provide a link to the article on the publisher's or vendor's site. Many provide persistent links for this very purpose. Contact McFarlin Library at 918-631-2880 if you need any assistance.
- DO NOT facilitate unauthorized access by others. Specifically, NEVER share your TU ID number or your campus username and password.
