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On Mar 4, 2013, at 11:11 AM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Whether it's Amazon AWS, or Yahoo BOSS, or JournalTOCs, or almost anything else -- there are a variety of API's that library software wants to use, which require registering an account to use.

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> Has anyone found a way to deal with this issue, other than having each API registered to an account belonging to whatever individual staff happened to be dealing with it that day?

The government actually has a program for this.

	http://www.howto.gov/web-content/resources/tools/terms-of-service-agreements

If you work for the feds there are some alternate terms of services for various "Social Media Providers" (it actually covers more than what I think of as "social media").  So far, they've only really looked at 'free' services.

It's a little bit tricky to use them, as you have to find out if your government agency has yet agreed to the terms that a company is offering.  If they don't have an agreement ... well, it takes some time to get the approval, as it's got to go through the agency's legal council.

If you're with a state government (and most state universities are considered state government), then there are alternate TOSes available for Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

-Joe