[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

Tue Mar 8 20:39:02 UTC 2011

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 2:20 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I don't mean to derail this thread off-topic ... but I'm a Wikipedian,
> I can't help myself :)
>
> Most (all?) university libraries sign contracts with database/journal
> vendors restricting access to only faculty/staff/students at the
> university. The library pays according to how many people that is.
> Giving access to others is generally a violation of that contract, and
> could variously: a) cause the library to lose access to the resource
> altogether, if the publisher determines that many 'unauthorized'
> people are gaining access or a great deal is being downloaded; b)
> cause the student to be sanctioned by the university for mis-using
> their log-in ID. So, uh, yeah, let's not do outreach asking for this.
>
> Sadly, most pay-for-privileges schemes like Aude describes, at least
> for American universities, are only for checking out books, not access
> to e-resources.
>
>
Being able to borrow books would still be hugely useful.  I could finish
with some of my featured articles and work more on content. (reason I'm
here)

While I'm at the university getting my books, it's possible to access
databases and download anything & everything I want.  Not ideal, but okay
when combined w/ what's accessible via the public library and other means.

-Katie

> (You can probably figure out what this means yourself -- to get access
> to databases, the WMF would likely have to negotiate similar
> contracts. For reference, my university employs a full-time person +
> several other people's time just for this job. Are we special? yes.
> Are we likely to get publishers to talk to us and do special things?
> Probably! But it's not totally simple.)
>
> /librarian :)
> phoebe
>
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