In general, widely accessible trials should be discouraged, primarily due to setting faculty/student expectation that this resource will have uninterrupted access between trial and licensing/purchase. With few exceptions, trialed resources should be limited in scope to the librarian and selected individual faculty for evaluative purposes. In this case, for ease of control, the resource should be accessed by user name and password, and the trial can be requested and managed by the bibliographer. You should, however, send an email to Electronic Resources Unit in Acquisitions (electroniclib@ucsd.edu) telling us that you have set up a trial of X resource for X period of time, in the event that we receive questions from users through the electroniclib account. It is not UCSD´s normal practice to distribute our IP list to a vendor to set up a trial. Some vendors with whom we have subscribed electronic resources may opt to make a trial resource available to our entire IP range (e.g. Ebsco). If the trial needs wider exposure (and will likely require IP access and a license), the trial information should be forwarded to electroniclib for implementation, the distribution of current IP´s and trial date monitoring. A selector should not send IP addresses for UCSD or any other UC campus to a vendor for a trial. If CDL is running a trial on a resource, CDL staff will supply those IP addresses if that is part of the trial. CDL will notify campuses through existing channels of the availability of the trial and assess user feedback. These are not monitored by the Acquisitions Department.
If trial access requires a signed license, that license should be submitted to electroniclib as soon as possible, so that appropriate approvals are in place before the trial begins. Any changes in the terms or conditions of these licenses will not be negotiated until a decision to purchase is finalized. Part of the evaluation process is to assess the usability of a resource and identify technical obstacles that would present barriers to licensing or other licensing issues that would prevent us from acquiring the resource. These issues need to be resolved with the vendor before licensing can proceed. The E–Resources Unit is unable to provide much technical or user support in a trial, other than to report access problems to a vendor.
Final Approved by CCG 10/14/08