Electronic resources and use of artificial intelligence tools

The European Commission has published guidelines on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in research. University of Turku policy on AI as part of the research encourages the use of AI applications in both research and related processes. Agreements for licensed resources acquired by the library have also gradually begun to include AI clauses, which impose their own restrictions on the use of AI tools.

It is very likely that agreements for licensed resourceswill include more AI clauses as they are renewed. From the point of view of publishers, it is particularly important that the material they publish is not used for the training of AI and that the organization providing the AI tool cannot use or share the material uploaded to the tool. So far, there are mentions of the use of AI tools in Elsevier's ScienceDirect Freedom and Springer Nature's Springer Compact agreements.

AI in the Elsevier and Springer Compact agreements

According to the Elsevier Agreement (2024 - 2025), an AI tool must be maintained in the subscriber organization's own technical environment or if it is maintained in a third-party technical environment, the materials uploaded there are only for the use of the subscriber organization or authorized users. Abbreviations, edits and translations are permitted for the personal use of an authorized user using tools based on artificial intelligence only in the above cases. The same applies to the use of material with AI tools, including training the algorithm, testing, processing, analysis, generating results, and/or developing any AI tool.

According to the Springer Compact agreement (2024 - 2025), the material may not be updated, modified, translated or reproduced, among other things, except under the conditions specified in the agreement, and this also applies to the use of artificial intelligence tools. The material must also not be used directly or indirectly to train artificial intelligence.

The above agreements with publishers have been concluded on behalf of Finnish libraries belonging to the FinELib consortium by the FinELib office of the National Library of Finland, which negotiates e-resources subscriptions and promotes the availability of e-resources and open publishing.

The full texts of the agreements can be found on FinELib's website.

More information

• Resource-specific links to key terms of use for electronic resources can be found in the Volter database availability information.
• General terms of use for e-resources can be found in library's Terms of Use for e-resources guide.
• Instructions on how to use AI in studying and research can be read in Librarian's Guide to Artificial Intelligence.