Log Files from Vendors
Nothing is more alarming then being told an expensive product you are paying for is being used too much and therefore is no longer available. This trail of logic befuddles me...
(user/journal details have been obfusticated)
Anyone with contact with electronic resource providers might at some point end up getting a message with a log file in it that looks something like the above. The message usually says something along the following:
Someone at your institution has wrongly taken an interest in an few issues of a particular journal you've paid a subscription to. To reward this interest we are cutting off access to that IP address for all of the journals we provide you. If you'd like access again please contact us after you've slapped the appropriate wrist.
Looking at the whole log file doesn't reveal any mischief (at least in my evaluation of it)
- 250ish html requests that resulted in 200 codes
- All of the traffic happened in about 15 minutes-ish
- 22 single page 'pdf' from 1 issue of a journal
- 111 single page 'pdf' from 1 issue of a journal (in another volume)
- 97 single page 'pdf' from 1 issue of a journal (in yet another volume)
- 17 single page 'pdf' from 1 issue of a journal (in still yet another volume)
Even if this was automatically downloaded (using say FlashGet or something similar) which in and of itself is impressive to guess all of those URLs, I can't see this as a grievous misuse of electronic resource. After all if the article wasn't chopped into single page pdfs I'd imagine this would only have been around 17-18 articles. (At a conservative 15 page average per article) When you're in the process of researching and grabbing articles to read later this seems totally reasonable.
