Commercial use of resources at Westminster Libraries
Howard Lake | 13 November 2008 | Blogs
I have not yet had the collective response from the various London libraries looking into the issue of commercial (fundraising) use of their business resources, but I have heard separately from someone at Westminster Libraries (www.westminster.gov.uk/libraries). I have been told that the electronic resources in Westminster Libraries have different licence agreements, and that they have generally arranged licences to enable businesses to carry out the sort of research I asked about e.g. creating mailing lists and doing market research. “Some databases such as Mintel are slightly restricted, but can be used by businesses to some extent.” Unfortunately the respondent did not address my question about using information from these resources as part of more detailed reports for clients, etc. I shall follow that one up.
I have been advised that, if you are planning to come and use business resources at Westminster Libraries for research, they suggest that you let them know on
bi*@we*********.uk
and they will be “happy to provide assistance”. What a palaver! I shall press for some sort of ./guidance notes, as with City Business Library.
It would appear that at least one of the suppliers of these databases is chasing researchers/fundraisers in the education sector about using their own library resources for a commercial (fundraising) purpose), so it looks like they may be getting a bit more difficult for us to use some of these expensive resources.
I shall keep you posted.
Finbar Cullen
ResearchPlus
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.