Use of Electronic Resources

Baker Library negotiates access to electronic resources for members of the Harvard or Harvard Business School communities, and, in some cases, to visiting researchers, for the purposes of research, teaching, and private study.

Our license agreements with vendors prohibit commercial use.

Misuse of our resources can result in loss of access to the resource for our entire community. Please use our electronic resources responsibly – you are responsible for compliance.

Under our license agreements, users may:

  • Download, copy, or print reasonable portions of licensed materials in pursuit of research, teaching and private study

  • Use quotes or excerpts of licensed materials in academic work with proper citation and in accordance with fair use

Under our license agreements, users may not:

  • Permit anyone other than authorized users to use the licensed materials

  • Systematically download, copy, print, or scrape licensed materials

  • Modify or create a derivative work of the licensed materials without the permission of the licensor

  • Remove, obscure, or modify any copyright or other notices included in licensed materials

  • Use licensed materials for commercial purposes, including but not limited to the sale of licensed materials

  • Use licensed materials to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, such as large language models (LLMs)

Individual resources may have more specific restrictions on use through click-through agreements. Please read these agreements and adhere to these terms of use.

Working with outside individuals or organizations:

Students and program participants may use most of our licensed resources in situations where they may be working with outside individuals or organizations, such as for summer internships, field coursework, and independent projects. However, please follow these guidelines:

  • Use only insignificant portions of reports, articles, and other documents for distribution to company employees or anyone else (do not share entire documents, reports, or datasets with outside individuals or organizations).

  • Never provide direct access to resources to others, and do not share your log-in information or password with anyone.

  • Attribute all data and excerpts you share and/or include in deliverables.