Terms of Use (was click-through..)

[Carole Richter <Carole.J.Richter.8@nd.edu>]

Anthony,

This would be a wonderful message for our publishers to contemplate. I
agree absolutely that there are serious limits to our ability to convey
terms of use restrictions to our users. Although we are planning to add a
general statement to our 'gateway' resource pages, and even though such a
statement 'could' be extended to the bibliographic records for eresources,
the fact is that users rarely read such statements.

We can point them out, but we only have personal contact with a small % of
potential users. The splash screen idea at the initial journal or article
page would be a far more effective way of conveying such terms. Ideally
this might take the form of a brief, succinct statement of the most
significant expectations, because a link to a lengthy document embodying
'our terms and conditions' won't be accessed or read at all.

Carole Richter
Electronic Resources Coordinator  
University of Notre Dame Libraries
(219)631-8405   
richter.8@nd.edu


>When I was a publisher, we set up arrangements for a short "splash screen"
>giving simple terms and conditions which came up whenever the user
>accessed an article. This idea was not implemented because the company
>(Chapman & Hall) was taken over.
>
>My thinking was that publishers, while realising that librarians will do
>all they can to educate users, must accept that they (librarians) can only
>do so much and in any case will not be able to accept responsibility for
>the actions of their users. Hence a wish to help in the education of the
>users, since, in the electronic environment, they are not going to a
>product in the library but to the site of the publisher or aggregator
>
>Anthony Watkinson