Use Electronic Resources Responsibly!

From the Library’s website, authorized UT Southwestern users may access more than:

  • 440,000 electronic books
  • 25,000 electronic journals
  • 300 databases

Be aware that electronic resource use is governed by institutional license agreements. Publishers monitor use of their electronic resources for potential abuse, especially at the institutional level.

To assist you in using licensed resources responsibly and navigating the copyright and permissions labyrinth, the Library has updated two guides:

  • Copyright – includes background, answers to basic questions, links to UT System Policy and resources, and a copyright flowchart designed to assist you understand proper usage based on the media form and source.
  • Using Media – provides information on how to access and use media (i.e., images, video, audio) responsibly, request permissions and cite and attribute.

Questions? Please send them to LibAsk@utsouthwestern.edu.

80,000+ titles added through De Gruyter ALCEP purchase

Through a purchase by the University of Texas System utilizing funds from the 2022 Academic Library Collection Enhancement Program (ALCEP), the Library provides access to more content for the De Gruyter eBook Subject and University Press Library (UPL) Collections. This purchase fills in the gaps for titles published since previous purchases, as well as UPL course adoption titles that were previously excluded from our license.

New content includes:

  • Columbia University Press eBook Collections (2019-2022)
  • Cornell University Press eBook Collections (2018-2022)
  • Harvard University Press eBook Collections (2019-2022)
  • Princeton University Press eBook Collections (2018-2022)
  • University of Hawaii Press eBook Collections (2018-2022)
  • University of Pennsylvania Press eBook Collections (2019-2022)
  • University of Toronto Press eBook Collections (2018-2022)
  • Yale University Press eBook Collections (2018-2022)
  • De Gruyter Plus eBook Package (2015-2022)
  • Vervuert Iberoamericano eBook Package (2021-2022)
  • Iberoamericana Vervuert eBook Package (2019-2020)

All 80,000+ titles from all purchases are now DRM (digital rights management) free.

Texas Universities Reach Historic Deal with Elsevier: TLC Saves Texas Universities Millions Collectively

Texas Library Coalition for United Action (TLCUA) is pleased to announce that it has concluded negotiations with Elsevier, and all TLCUA members have new agreements for subscription  journal access. In 2019, 44 public and private university campuses across Texas joined together to form TLCUA to think creatively about access to faculty publications and the sustainability of journal subscriptions. TLCUA has negotiated with Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scientific journals, including The Lancet and Cell and over 2,500 other journals covering topics in medicine, biology, psychology, engineering, business and more. The TLCUA effort aligns with other libraries across academia that have sought to evolve the relationship between libraries and publishers and find new ways to thrive together.

All TLCUA members received a discount on journal subscriptions–some as high as 30%–while still maintaining significant amounts of access to journals and combined, realized millions in savings annually. Beyond initial cost savings, Elsevier agreed to a maximum annual increase of 2% over the course of the license agreement, with some years as low as 0%, which is significantly lower than industry standard.

John Sharp, Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, said, “Since the beginning of the negotiations, the administration and faculty have stood behind the libraries in this effort. We are proud that so many institutions in Texas came together to realize cost savings and increase access not only in Texas but around the world.”

TLCUA certainly had ambitious goals to negotiate sustainable pricing for strained library budgets in higher education, but also made progress on its other goals of improving access to scholarship and providing authors with greater control over their published work over time.

TLCUA and Elsevier have agreed to partner on a pilot project to revert ownership of journal articles back to original authors—and not just those at TLCUA-member institutions. Currently, authors transfer copyright of their work in exchange for that work being published. This pilot will provide for rights to go back to  authors after a period of time that will be collaboratively determined with Elsevier. A subset of Elsevier journals will be chosen to study the impact of the copyright reversion pilot for authors and its applicability more broadly to STEM (scientific, technical, engineering and medical) publishers.

Further, all TLCUA-member authors who choose to publish their work under an open access license will have access to discounted author publication charges (APCs). TLCUA also negotiated a license template that removed non-disclosure terms, restrictions on sharing usage data, and 44-year-old limitations on interlibrary loans (i.e., CONTU Guidelines) to expand library collaboration and improve how libraries can share information on journal usage.

“We worked very hard with Elsevier leadership and negotiators to come to an agreement that aligns the values and priorities of our members and those held by Elsevier,” says lead negotiator and open access advocate Jeffrey Spies of 221B Consulting. “I am particularly excited about the copyright pilot project. Copyright is an often-overlooked ingredient in securing a more open scholarship, and the library community has a real opportunity here: to work with authors to share their work openly because it will once again be their work.”

Along with Spies, the team negotiating with Elsevier consisted of faculty, library leaders and librarians with collections expertise representing the diverse membership of TLCUA. They are David Carlson, former Dean of University Libraries at Texas A&M University; Kelly Gonzalez, Assistant Vice President for Library Services at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Deborah Hathaway, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian at the University of Dallas; Ian Knabe, Head of Acquisitions and Resource Sharing at the University of Houston; Asheley Landrum, Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University; Vagheesh Narasimhan, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology and Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas Austin; Richard Nollan, former Dean of Libraries at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center; Alexia Thompson-Young, Assistant Director of Scholarly Resources at the University of Texas Austin; Charles Weaver, Department Chair and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University; and Ginger Williams, Head Acquisitions Administrative Librarian at Texas State University.

Initial workshops to define the parameters of the pilot project will begin soon. TLCUA has begun exploring their next negotiation priorities and other projects that can benefit from state-wide collaboration. Sara Lowman, TLCUA Chair and Vice Provost and University Librarian at Rice University, is enthusiastic about the future of TLCUA. “The Coalition demonstrated what can be done when Texas institutions aligned by their principles work together. We have big plans,” she said.

About TLCUA

TLCUA represents more than 660,000 students and 44,000 faculty. This consortium is one of the largest and most diverse library consortia in the United States.  Faculty in the Coalition member libraries account for 7.2% of all research output in the United States and about 6% of all U.S. research published by Elsevier. The economic impact of Coalition members is significant with annual expenditures exceeding $275 million.

Current TLCUA members are:

  • Angelo State University
  • Baylor University
  • Lamar University
  • Prairie View A&M University
  • Rice University
  • Sam Houston State University
  • Stephen F. Austin University
  • Sul Ross State University
  • Tarleton State University
  • Texas A&M International University
  • Texas A&M University (College Station)
  • Texas A&M University-Central Texas
  • Texas A&M University-Commerce
  • Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
  • Texas A&M University-Kingsville
  • Texas A&M University-San Antonio
  • Texas A&M University-Texarkana
  • Texas State University
  • Texas Tech University (Lubbock)
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Lubbock
  • The TMC Library
  • The University of Texas at Arlington
  • The University of Texas at Austin
  • The University of Texas at Dallas
  • The University of Texas at El Paso
  • The University of Texas Permian Basin
  • The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • The University of Texas at San Antonio
  • The University of Texas at Tyler
  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
  • The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
  • The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler
  • University of Dallas
  • University of Houston
  • University of Houston Clear Lake
  • University of Houston Downtown
  • University of North Texas
  • University of North Texas Health Sciences Center
  • West Texas A&M University

AccessAPN Arrives

The Library is excited to announce that UT Southwestern now officially subscribes to AccessAPN, offered by McGraw Hill Medical in partnership with Sigma Theta Tau. 
If you are enrolled in an APN program, then the content in AccessAPN aligns with the curricula of Advanced Practice Nursing programs, including those for Nursing Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Doctors of Nursing Practice. Of course, these resources are available for all UT Southwestern nursing staff – in acute care to ambulatory care and include the following: 

  • Books – more than 40 eBooks on a variety of topics, including clinical information, EBP, informatics, leadership, professional development, and self-care/personal development
  • Cases – materials for short, targeted case-based learning 
  • Review Questions – thousands of Q&A for board exam preparation 

 More information about AccessAPN is available from McGraw Hill, including a Brief Overview of AccessAPN – YouTube, as well as how to set up a MyAccess Profile account to access content remotely and unlock personal account features (e.g., review questions, cases).

Don’t Forget to Reauthenticate Your MyAccess Profiles Every 90 Days

The MyAccess profile is free to create and available on all of McGraw Hill’s medical Access platforms. This profile creates a personalized experience by unlocking the ability to bookmark content, interact with review Q&A and cases, and receive alerts about new content additions.
Another benefit of a MyAccess profile is the ability to go directly to the site (e.g., www.AccessMedicine.com) to access it remotely.
If you see a message that your remote access has expired, connect to the UTSW subscription either from on campus or while using VPN or EZproxy and then log into your MyAccess profile.

TexShare databases provide wide variety of resources

In addition to its extensive medical/health sciences collection of journals, books and databases, UT Southwestern Health Sciences Digital Library and Learning Center participates in the TexShare Databases Program (coordinated by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission). These databases provide access to more than 27,000 journals and magazines, over 171,000 ebooks, and over 15 million images, videos, and interactive resources in both medical/health sciences and non-medical/health sciences disciplines, such as business, career resources, education, genealogy, general studies, law, general studies, and much more! To access, click on TexShare Databases under Popular Links on the Library’s home page.

Texas universities join forces to negotiate their future

New coalition seeks lower costs and greater access to research.

Twenty-seven universities across Texas have joined forces as the Texas Library Coalition for United Action (TLCUA) to think creatively about access to faculty publications and the sustainability of journal subscriptions. TLCUA has organized to identify the best way to change current models and the relationships between academic institutions and publishers. The goals of the Coalition are ambitious – improved access to scholarship, greater control over faculty content, and pricing models that are sustainable for strained library budgets in higher education. 

The sustainability of providing scholarly research at ever-increasing costs is putting these academic libraries in difficult positions as they work to offer access to scholars on their campuses.  

“We are nearing a tipping point where we can no longer continue under the current business model,” said Sara Lowman, Vice Provost & University Librarian at Rice University and chair of the Coalition Steering Committee. “We want to come up with solutions that benefit everyone involved: the taxpayers and others who fund our research, the professors who conduct the research, the publishers who disseminate our research findings, and people around the world who benefit from research conducted in Texas.”  

Technology has provided greater opportunities for wider availability of resources, and the Coalition wants those opportunities to be reflected in agreements that will benefit all academic libraries whether public or private, urban or rural. 

The Coalition has begun its mission by entering into dialog with academic publisher Elsevier. They hope that through positive engagement and mutual understanding, an improved and sustainable model for the dissemination of scholarship can be achieved. 

“We value the content in Elsevier journals and look forward to working with Elsevier to come to a mutually beneficial agreement,” Lowman said. 

Elsevier is the world’s largest publisher of scholarly work, with 70 offices in 24 countries. It publishes 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, covering topics in medicine, biology, psychology, business, and more. Elsevier has been involved in a number of negotiations with US universities recently, including the University of California system, California State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Louisiana State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Washington University in St. Louis. 

The Coalition institutions collectively have more than 397,000 students and 25,000 faculty. Their Elsevier subscriptions represent a significant investment estimated at over $20 million. By these and other measures, the Coalition represents one of the largest and most diverse U.S. collective negotiation consortia of its kind. 

The current members of the Texas Library Coalition for United Action are: 

  • Angelo State University 
  • Baylor University 
  • Lamar University 
  • Prairie View A&M University 
  • Rice University 
  • Sam Houston State University 
  • Stephen F. Austin University 
  • Sul Ross State University 
  • Tarleton State University 
  • Texas A&M International University 
  • Texas A&M University (College Station) 
  • Texas A&M University-Central Texas 
  • Texas A&M University-Commerce 
  • Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi 
  • Texas A&M University-Kingsville 
  • Texas A&M University-San Antonio 
  • Texas A&M University-Texarkana 
  • Texas State University 
  • Texas Tech University (Lubbock) 
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso 
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Lubbock 
  • University of Dallas 
  • University of Houston 
  • University of Houston Clear Lake 
  • University of Houston Downtown 
  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 
  • West Texas A&M University 

New “Fire and Freedom” traveling poster exhibition at South Campus Library

The UT Southwestern Health Sciences Digital Library & Learning Center is hosting Fire and Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America, a new six-panel traveling exhibition. Meals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes. The 18th century collection materials—upon which the exhibition is based—describe connections between food, botany, health, and housekeeping.

The exhibition will be on display for the UT Southwestern community until May 19, 2018. In addition to this physical exhibition, other publicly-available online components include web pages for each of the six panels, higher education class modules, a curator’s bibliography, and a digital gallery.

One of the medical history books listed in the curator’s bibliography—Blanton, Wyndham B. Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century. Richmond, VA: Garrett and Massie, 1931—is available at the Joint Library Facility and can be requested by UT Southwestern faculty, staff, and students at no cost through Interlibrary Loan. It is also available as an ebook through HathiTrust and can be viewed page by page without logging in; to download the ebook as a PDF for offline reading, simply log in using a UT Southwestern username and password.

The National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health developed and produced this exhibition. Research assistance was provided by staff at The Washington Library at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. It was guest curated by Psyche Williams-Forson, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, American Studies, University of Maryland College Park.

Resources on demand using Wiley Article Select Tokens

Over the past few years, the Library implemented and subsidized a pilot project to allow single, pay-per-view access to non-subscribed Wiley content. This overview describes the service and summarizes best practices for use based on project outcomes.

What is the Wiley Article Select Token service?

Wiley’s Article Select Token service is a pay-for-view option that allows users instant, 24/7 access to non-subscribed content seamlessly. Periodically, the Library purchases a set amount of tokens, which allows any authorized user from one of our reported campus IP addresses to “spend” a single token for a single journal article/book chapter/unit. To make access as easy as possible, we implemented the least restrictive control option. Users can seamlessly download Wiley content without any intervention by staff.

A user will see this message if an Article Select Token is required: “Select the confirm option to access the material. All users at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas will have access to this material for 24 hours.

What material is available through the Wiley Article Select Token service?

  • Journal back files collection (pre-1997 content for 1,600+ journals)
  • Over 18,000 online books
  • 185 major reference works
  • Current Protocols Laboratory Methods

Selected journals and reference works are specifically excluded from this service due to third party societies’ or publishers’ restrictions.

What “best practices” can users take to help conserve available Wiley tokens?

Since the Wiley Article Select Token service requires Library budgetary support (average token fee is $19.00), we have identified a few best practice guidelines based on behavioral patterns identified during the pilot project.

  • Download your article/chapter/unit and save it locally once you confirm use through a token. Downloading ensures that you won’t need to use a second or third token to re-access the same content at some future date.
  • Consider using ILL (interlibrary loan) If you need multiple chapters from a book. A single token allows access to a single chapter. Compare the cost of five requests using routine interlibrary loan ($25.00) versus the cost of the same five requests using the token service ($95.00).
  • Try to coordinate access if you know that multiple users will need access to the same material. A single token provides unlimited concurrent user access to material for a 24-hour period.

Next steps for the Library:

The Wiley Article Select Tokens pilot period has provided indisputable evidence of both user need and campus cost benefit. The breadth of content being used is exceptional, and users have embraced the easy accessibility and speed of this service. We’ve been extremely pleased with the outcomes to date. We expect to spend less than the subscription costs that would be involved to add requested materials, and users gain immediate access to an expanded amount of content.

We will continue to assess whether this approach could serve as an effective long-term, supplementary (and economical) collection strategy to the expanding number of expensive materials that are routinely requested.

If you have any questions or feedback about this pilot, please contact Mori Lou Higa at mori.lou.higa@utsouthwestern.edu or 214 648-2989.