The Georgetown University Library provides faculty, students, and staff with access to a wide range of electronic resources, including databases, e-journals, and e-books. All of our e-resources contain copyrighted materials, the use of which is subject to license agreements with publishers that govern how the e-resource may be used. It is very important that all library patrons abide by the terms of our license agreements; violations may result in temporary or permanent loss of access to the e-resource for the entire Georgetown community.
Some terms of use for e-resources are standard across most of our licenses:
| Usually Permitted | Usually not Permitted |
|---|---|
| Use by current Georgetown students, faculty, staff | Use by non-Georgetown students or alumni (see below) |
| Making limited print or electronic copies (such as single articles) | Excessive or systematic or substantial printing, copying or downloading (such as entire journal issues or books), or downloading for text mining or AI training |
| Using for research, instruction, or coursework | Using when not doing academic work (such as during a summer internship), or for commercial or non-academic purposes (such as redistributing content). |
| Posting links to specific content | Posting actual content or articles to websites or listservs, or otherwise sharing articles with non-Georgetown users |
| Quoting with proper citation | Modifying, altering, or creating derivative works |
Other uses of e-resources may be permitted or prohibited by the license agreement, including:
- electronic reserves
- text mining
- scholarly sharing of articles
- course packs
- multiple copies for classroom use
- interlibrary lending
- artificial intelligence training
- authorized users
- The majority of license agreements define authorized users as currently enrolled students, faculty, and staff of Georgetown University
- In most cases, walk-in users (individuals who are physically present on GU campus and who are not current GU students, faculty or staff) are also included
- A limited number of e-resources are available for off-campus use by alumni
If you have questions or need additional information about the terms of e-resources licensed by the Library, please contact the Electronic Resources & Serials Unit.
For questions about copyright, please email librarycopyright@georgetown.edu.