Copyright

Copyright regulations dictate how electronic materials such as journal articles and ebooks can be shared with others. Follow these do's and don'ts to make sure that you are adhering to copyright when sharing information with colleagues.

It is typically against copyright to share electronic materials by:

• Emailing a PDF of the full text to others 
• Printing off a copy and distributing to others

 Best practices for sharing journal articles or ebooks with others:

• If searching the open web (e.g., Google) or a journal's website, copy and paste the browser URL into an email.
• If searching in a database, use the database email function.
• If searching in a database, copy and paste the article permalink (if available) into an email.
• Send citation information (e.g,. title, author, publication date, DOI, etc.) in an email.

Note: Some journal articles and ebooks are available on the web for free, while others are made available to Nova Scotia Health affiliates through subscriptions managed by Library Services. The best practices for sharing journal articles or ebooks apply to all publications, regardless of how they are published or where they are found.