Re: Advice on breach

[Paul Wrynn <wrynnp01@library.med.nyu.edu>]

My recommendation would be to state to the vendor what steps you will take
to try to prevent this from happening again.  You could place advisories
on your web pages where the links are, and you could include compliance
discussion in library handouts and in classroom presnetations, if you do
those.

Other than that, these things are just going to happen and the vendor
certainly should be aware there is little librarians can do to prevent the
actual occurence if an individual is determined enough to carry it out.

The best we can do is demonstrate that we make efforts to prevent abuse,
especially unintentional abuses.

Paul Wrynn
Collection Development Librarian
Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library
NYU School of Medicine

At 06:46 PM 10/27/00 -0400, you wrote:
>We were recently informed by a vendor that one of our users had downloaded
>thousands of articles from one of the vendors titles in very short period
>of time.  Wanting to comply, we identified the culprit and have taken
>appropriate action. Still, the vendor asks us to provide them with an
>assurance that such downloading will not take place again.
>
>This is our first breach ever. I am wondering, in material terms, how I
>can confidently issue such an assurance when these things are impossible
>to control? We can educate our users, but we can't stand over them while
>they work. Would it not be more practical for the vendor to put into place
>some kind of warning that pops up on the screen when someone reaches a
>certain level of downloading? Aren't there products that do this now? I
>think I heard that NetLibrary does this.
>
>Also, should the letter go out to the vendor under the name of the Dean of
>Libraries, or would one from the humble office of the Head of Collection
>Development or Acquisitions suffice? What is the protocol here?
>
>Any recommendations?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Helen Anderson
>Head, Collection Development
>River Campus Libraries
>University of Rochester
>Tel. 716-275-3302
>e-mail handerson@rcl.lib.rochester.edu