Licensed Electronic Resources Access Policy

Access to and use of electronic resources and licensed online content is restricted to authorized users within the Harford Community College Library community. The term "Authorized users" includes people who are currently associated with HCC Library.  Faculty, staff and credit students may access our databases from on OR off-campus. Community Borrowers who are physically on-campus, may access our databases. Some content may be restricted to certain HCC populations (such as by course or department).

Authorized users are responsible for complying with the terms and conditions of these license agreements, as well as the Copyright Act of 1976.

While each vendor has its own unique licensing language, in general most licenses allow authorized users to:

• Print / Download / Quote for teaching, research or personal uses.
• Email articles to other authorized users.
• Share links to other authorized users.

License agreements prohibit the following uses:

• Allowing anyone other than authorized users to access the licensed content.
• Downloading entire issues of online journals or major portions of electronic books.
• Downloading text to create a corpus of text for analysis.
• Using software or other automated tools to systematically download licensed content.
• Using licensed resources for commercial purposes.

Infringement of these basic restrictions may prompt a publisher/vendor to deny access to their licensed content to an individual, or to the entire HCC Community.

Questions about the proper use of HCC Library’s electronic resources should be sent to the Electronic Resources Librarian, or Assistant Director for the Library.