Copyright has been an issue which sustains authors’ ability to produce, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, limits readers’ use to a certain extent. As guardians of copyrighted material, libraries make every effort to help maximize the use of its materials.

The Dutch National Library recently took this a step further by digitizing its copyrighted material and giving full access to the public. Instead of resolving the copyright issue with authors one by one, it took an “opt-out model” and asked copyright owners to contact the library if they didn’t agree to making their material available online.

Read more at Dutch National Library gives full access to in copyright material.

Springer is one of the major publishers in the world of science and technology. It has an online platform for its ebooks, called SpringerLink. It recently changed its interface. Unfortunately, the migration caused some of McGill Library’s ebooks to go temporarily missing from the collection. If you see a Springer ebook in the Library’s Catalogue but cannot open the full text following the “Find it” link, you could try pressing the “Access old SpringerLink” button on the top right of the screen. This will take you to the old platform where you may be able to open the full text.

Additionally, if you cannot find a recently published Springer book in the Library’s catalogue, try going to SpingerLink directly and searching by the title or author. Sometimes the catalogue records come later than the ebooks. Please note that you need to turn on VPN or log onto EZproxy if you want to access the Library’s electronic resources from off campus.

The reading break is around the corner. If you plan to visit other educational institutions during that week, you might be able to access their wireless network using your McGill Username and Password. This privilege comes from “eduroam”, a roaming wireless authentication service worldwide. McGill University is a member of eduroam, which enables its students, faculty and staff to access the wireless network at other eduroam participating institutions using the same credentials they use at McGill University. The detail of configuring this service is here. If you need to use McGill Library’s electronic resources when you are there, you will also need VPN or EZproxy after logging onto the network. Below is a short video about eduroam.