Electronic Resources

This policy provides guidelines for the Chester Fritz Library in the selection, acquisition, provision of access to, and maintenance of electronic resources.  Electronic resources may include databases, eBooks, audiovisual materials, and other online resources that require licenses. For guidelines specific to electronic periodicals please see the Periodicals Policy.

The following guideline standards shall be followed for all electronic resources:

1. The Library shall retain authority for selecting and deselecting materials.
2. Collection development guidelines shall be applied consistently across formats including electronic resources.
3. Principal considerations include:
   • establishing a rationale for the acquisition of each resource
   • meeting faculty and student information needs, providing orderly access and guidance to the electronic resources, and integrating them into library service programs.
4.  Financial consideration aside, whenever possible, adequate information resources should be provided for all disciplines.
5. Priority shall be given to electronic format acquisition of those resources which benefit the most faculty and students for the best price.
6. Priority shall be given to electronic resources when they offer significant added value over print equivalents in such ways as:
   • more timely availability
   • more extensive content
   • greater functionality such as the ability to invoke linkages to local and/or related resources or search content
   • greater access because they can be delivered rapidly, remotely, at any time in a multitude of formats
   • improved resource sharing due to the prevalence of electronic resources
   • ease of archiving, replacing, preserving.
7. The Library will address objections to linked electronic information by following the Procedure outlined in the ALA Bill of Rights for “Challenged Material.”

Licensing

The Library prefers license agreements that include:

1. Perpetual access rights to the content that has been paid for.
2. Information providers shall employ a standard agreement that describes the rights of libraries and their authorized users in terms that are readable and explicit, and they shall reflect realistic expectations concerning the Library's ability to monitor use and discover abuse. Agreements shall contain consistent business and legal provisions, including, for example, indemnification against third-party copyright infringement liability and permission to use records in personal bibliographic software.
3. The license agreement shall not contain a clause that establishes the laws of any one state to rule. If so, the clause shall be changed to the state of North Dakota or worded in such a way as to not mention any state.
4. The licensed content, plus any associated features and capabilities, shall be accessible from all institutionally-supported computing platforms and networked environments; this access must be based on current standards (e.g., Z39.50 compliant) in use by the library community.
5. Licenses shall permit fair use of all information for non-commercial educational, instructional and research purposes by authorized users whether local or remote, including Interlibrary lending, unlimited viewing, downloading and printing.
6. Use data shall follow the ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia) Standards and be available to the Library as part of contractual provisions for a license, and the confidentiality of individual users and their searches must be fully protected.
7. The license shall permit access by IP range or other non-password authentication.
8. Consultation with appropriate legal counsel may be required.

Rev. & Adopted 01/22