[Eril-l] Retiree access to electronic resources?

Thu Feb 8 09:13:20 PST 2018

Hi,

This question has a déjà vu feel to it, since it comes back on a periodic basis and there have been sessions at conferences about this.

Ditto re: emeritus faculty. At our university, emeritus status is a privilege that not all retired faculty have, and certainly that retired staff don’t have…Emeritus faculty have full access. Some even have offices on campus, come to meetings, and may even service as small group learning facilitators. Alumni and retirees “only” have on-site access, they may have specially issued e-mail addresses….

Taking advantage of an opportunity, some of “our” database producers have come out with products specifically with alums (sometimes other categories of users, such as donors) in mind, eg. Ebsco:
https://www.ebsco.com/who-we-serve/academic-libraries/subjects/alumni-databases

Libraries often have special websites, libguides, portals to explain what alums can access, eg.:
https://guides.lib.vt.edu/alumniportal/signin
Aug 16, 2017 - The Virginia Tech Libraries has licensed a small selection of databases (sources of journal articles and ebooks) for use by Virginia Tech alumni. We control access to these select licensed resources through the Alumni Library Portal Sign In service.

https://guides.lib.vt.edu/alumniporta/resources/refworks
Aug 14, 2017 - ProQuest RefWorks is a citation manager available to all Virginia Tech users including alumni.

Some websites, include ours, also include lists of selected free resources on our alum gateway/info page…

Ramune Kubilius
Collection Development / Special Projects Librarian
Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Vidas, Chris
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2018 11:09 AM
To: Jeanne Little <jeanne.little at uni.edu>; Crawford, Laurel <Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu>
Cc: eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Retiree access to electronic resources?

Hi Laurel,

I’m also interested in seeing other responses, but my experience has mirrored what Jeanne described below.  My past conversations with vendors suggested that emeritus faculty are considered authorized users because they retain an official title and connection to the institution, but that is a distinction that should not apply to all former employees, even if they retired from your institution.  We had to be sure that our IT unit did not continue to allow access to resources simply because a user group retained a valid login for various systems provided by the university (e.g. email).  For example, even if your alumni and retirees retain access to email, that does not mean that they should be entitled to access all of your electronic collections.  Vendors like EBSCO provide resources such as Business Source Alumni Edition specifically for graduates, so EBSCO wouldn’t consider that particular group to be “authorized users” for other resources.

As Jeanne suggested, it never hurts to ask a vendor, but you may also benefit from inquiring with IT at UNT to glean a better understanding of how they manage retiree and alumni access to resources to insure that you’re adhering to licensing restrictions.

Thanks for posting your question!

Chris

Chris Vidas
University Libraries
Electronic Resources and Collections Assessment Librarian
University Libraries                 765-285-8033 Office
Ball State University                765-285-2644 Fax
Muncie, IN  47306                   cdvidas at bsu.edu<mailto:cdvidas at bsu.edu>

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From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Jeanne Little
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2018 11:35 AM
To: Crawford, Laurel <Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu<mailto:Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu>>
Cc: eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Retiree access to electronic resources?

Laurel,

We are starting to inquire at the time of new online resource purchases, whether our Emeritus faculty and our Alumni have access. These two groups retain their login credentials after they leave the university. If they forget them, we direct them to campus IT who can assist them in re-setting passwords that they might have forgotten.

We do not just assume these groups can have access so we inquire if a specific resource's access is asked about. We have also started keeping track of this information in our online records also (we have Ex Libris' Alma/Primo, so this information is noted in the downloaded license and/or in a note field in the POL whenever we confirm this access).
Best,

Jeanne Little
--
Library Assistant IV
Resource Management
Rod Library - Room 240
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA  50614-3675
319-273-2339

On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 10:06 AM, Crawford, Laurel <Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu<mailto:Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu>> wrote:
Hello collective wisdom,

We are wondering how common it is for academic libraries to allow retirees access to electronic resources, outside of the library, using an institutional login?

As librarians, is it your understanding that our contracts must explicitly permit retiree access, or are retirees considered part of the “authorized users” group?

I’m considering retirees to be people who used to work at the institution but who are now officially “inactive” from an HR perspective, who separated via retirement and not quitting/being fired.

We’d greatly appreciate any advice you may have.

Laurel Sammonds Crawford
Head of Collection Development
University of North Texas Libraries
laurel.crawford at unt.edu<mailto:laurel.crawford at unt.edu>

Preferred pronouns: she, her, and hers

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