Guidelines for Selection of Electronic Publications: Access

To assess any method of access, selectors should apply the following criteria.

IP Address Validation. Only electronic publications openly available to the campus community through IP address validation should be added to the collection. Selectors should avoid individual registration requirements, passwords or any other methods of individual authentication or authorization, unless those methods are optional. Services allowing users to voluntarily create profiles for notification of new content are not problematic.

Simultaneous Users. Publishers often limit the number of simultaneous users that can access a given publication or service at the same time. Selectors should establish that a given price allows for an adequate number of simultaneous users.

IP Address Subnets. The UMD campus currently includes three class B subnets. Access via class C subnets or a limited number of computers will not provide campus-wide access.

Enforcement of Limits on Access. With electronic books, vendors may employ a variety of means to limit the number of users who can access a book at a particular time. Some vendors simply send a message to the user's browser that a particular service or book is unavailable. Others have a more complicated method that allows a user to check-out books for limited periods of time. Selectors should examine the flexibility (for example, whether the check-out time can be altered) and openness of any method of enforcement.