Any electronic resource that the TUT LIS acquire come with either terms and conditions, terms of use, copyright principles or a license agreements. Unfortunately most people tend to ignore those conditions, as copyright and intellectual property are seemingly unimportant, but run into trouble if we want to use the content in certain ways and then become frustrated when the system does not allow us to do so.
These are the first conditions, important to any user of an e-book as it will allow access to this work of knowledge, or not.
Personal use licenses, usually come with a clause stating that it is intended for only the person who registers first to read the material or it will explicitly say that the information is accessible to only one specific user. This is called a personal use license.
Libraries across the world has the mandate to deliver information to their broader user community and when publishers decide to provide information on personal use licenses only, libraries, due to their policies and mandates cannot pursue access unless access has been negotiated with publishers at a cost. Many times publishers do allow libraries to acquire these items, but it comes with a expensive price tag. These cost implications must be considered wisely as it might influence the number of other valuable resource that might not be acquired due to one or two items that depletes the funds available for the department.
Unfortunately most of these eBooks are the ones academics want to use in the classroom, namely prescribed textbooks. Publishers do not want to loose revenue and therefore classify these books as prescribed books. Even if you institution does not use this book as prescribed material, the book will be classified as such with the publisher when other institutions use the book as prescribed. When these books are classified as prescribed learning material, the licensing conditions change from unlimited access to personal use only. Libraries therefore does not have the power to override the publisher's wishes, but if we had access to these books prior to the change in licensing conditions, the publisher must honor the original agreement with that institution.
In most instances, these publishers will not allow the LIS to acquire these online books and it is unfortunately not the mandate of the LIS to buy online prescribe learning material for students. Instances where we are allowed to acquire copies we are only allowed to acquire 5 copies of one title. A limited number of these e-books that are classified as textbooks might be available through the Library and Information Services by using specific platforms, such as Snapplify, where students and staff could check the books out for a specific period depending on the demand for those copies. The period could be anything from 3 hours to a couple of days. Students therefore should not rely on access the day before tests or exams as e-book availability could be occupied by other students.
An institutional license agreement is when an institution acquire a work of knowledge for the purposes of access to the institutional community or in some cases, part of the community.
Although access for the institution has been established, there might be certain licensing conditions regarding access, which we call Digital Rights Management (DRM), which will determine how the user community are allowed to use the content acquired. In most instances the system will determine what users can and cannot to and might therefore lead to some frustration. Herewith some of the conditions that will influence use:
The number of users TUT is allowed access, to a specific resource or collection is determined by the publisher and the publisher's classification of the resource. Popular titles and some prescribed titles might have a limited number of users that are allowed access or simultaneous access, although normal monographs and even reference works might have an unlimited number of simultaneous users.
Resources acquired through the publishers tend to have unlimited user licensed conditions, where resources acquired from aggregators and textbook specific platforms that allow library acquisitions, might have specific limitations to the number of simultaneous users, depending on the number of copies the library want to make available taking budget and policy into consideration, as well as the number we are allowed to acquire, based on publisher requirements.
DRMs are limitations publishers, as copyright holders, as instilled when content is hosted on their own e-textbook platforms or where third parties host their content.
These conditions are but not limited to:
These resources might only be available from a couple of hours to days depending on the policies and systems managing these resources. Users will be allowed to revisit the information if there are no other people requiring access first.
Downloading is usually permitted on specific readers, where time limitations on access will be instilled. Downloading will be allowed again if no other users require access.
Depending on copyright regulations and the the publisher's recommendations these resources will receive a specific allowance for copying.
Depending on copyright regulations and the the publisher's recommendations these resources will receive a specific allowance for number of pages that can be printed.
If a resource has an unlimited number of simultaneous users, and has no limitations concerning any DRMs, it is called DRM Free publications.