Responsible Use of Electronic Resources

License Agreements

The use of the Library-subscribed electronic resources (databases, e-journals, e-books, etc.) is governed by license agreements negotiated between the HKMU Library and the publishers/vendors. The license agreements restrict access to electronic resources in authorized paths and methods and to current students, staff and authorized users only.

Copyright

The contents of online journals, books, databases and multimedia materials are intellectual property protected by the copyright law. Users are fully responsible for any legal consequences arising from excessive downloading or infringement of prevailing copyright laws.

Prohibited Uses

Users may download, save, or print reasonable portions of text, search results, and other information from the library's online resources for studying, teaching, and/or research purposes.

However, the following uses are prohibited:

Sharing your library login and passwords to online resources with unauthorized users or any other person.
Systematic or excessive downloading, copying, and/or archiving of substantial portions of online resources in any form or medium.
Examples of systematic or excessive use include:
- Continuously downloading one article after another;
- Continuously downloading tables of contents, search results, citations, or output;
- Downloading entire issues or volumes of an e-journal;
- Downloading the entire contents of an e-book or multimedia resource.
Using robots, spiders, or other automated programmes to download electronic resources;
Use of online resources for commercial purposes;
Selling text, search results, or other information in any form or medium;
Posting information retrieved or downloaded from online resources to a listserv, on a website, or to an email list; and
Redistributing information from online resources to unauthorized users.

Consequences of Violation

Publishers/vendors will trace the source of any unusual account activity and ask library staff to take follow up action, such as warning the offending user.

Publishers/vendors may immediately suspend access to the particular electronic resource for the entire University.