Databases

Access to as well as the permitted forms of use of electronic documents and data licensed by the HSG-Library are regulated in license agreements between the respective providers and the University of St.Gallen. In general, the following restrictions apply:

• Licensed electronic documents and data are only intended for personal use in the context of studies, research and teaching at the University of St.Gallen. Any commercial use is prohibited.
• The forwarding of licensed data or documents to third parties or their public distribution (e.g. on a freely accessible website) is not not permitted.
  • Third parties are also colleagues, friends or relatives from other institutions who do not have their own access to these documents or data via their own institution.
  • Third parties are also external AI platforms such as ChatGPT, where control over storage and future use is determined by these third parties.
• Artificial Intelligence AI: in most cases, the use of licensed content and data for the training of or for working with AI tools is not contractually permitted. If you are planning to use licensed resources in this way, please contact us in advance so that the relevant legal framework can be clarified.
• Text & Data Mining TDM: the availability of licensed content and data for TDM projects is depending on the agreement with the respective provider. We offer our support and can act as an intermediary with the providers, e.g. we can check for you the availability of data or clarify with providers if and how you can access and use such content and data. Detailed information about our support services can be found here: Text & Data Mining
• The systematic download as well as the reproduction (manually or with software, e.g. scraping, crawlers, scripts etc.) of substantial parts of E-Journals, E-Books or other licensed databases is not allowed. Providers deem such activities and the use of such tools as infringement of license agreements – which can lead to restricting or even blocking of the access to these resources for the entire University.
• Additionally, to the licensing agreements, the HSG IT User Regulations and Swiss Copyright law do apply.

If you are not certain regarding the proper use of licensed resources or if you have any other questions, please do contact us at elibrary@unisg.ch.