Every Library’s Nightmare? Digital Rights Management, Use Restrictions, and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources

Abstract

This study explored use restrictions found in licensed scholarly resources from the fields of history/art history, engineering, and health sciences. The analysis developed a framework of use restrictions that distinguishes between soft restrictions—which discourage use—and hard restrictions—which strictly prevent use. Soft restrictions include: extent of use, obfuscation, omission, amalgamation, frustration, and warning. The study concludes that these soft restrictions are relatively common in licensed scholarly resources. Further, while hard restrictions are less common, they are not unknown. The study questions whether librarians should be doing more to challenge use restrictions.