Library Account Terms

Welcome. These terms are the agreement between you and LightEn Education Network (registered as a charity in England & Wales, with number 1198876), about your use of the Library of Light (the "Library", "we", "us"). They cover opening and using your account. We've kept them short and clear. You accept them as part of opening your account.

1.        Why you need an account

Your account is what makes the Library personal to you. With it, you can build your own reading list, pick up each title where you left off, and bookmark passages that resonate. The entire Library is available once you have an account, and opening one is free. To open it, you provide your email address, choose a password, and confirm that you accept these terms.

2.        Who can open one

As these terms constitute a legal agreement under English law, you must be 18 or older to open an account.

3.        How these terms fit with our Website Terms of Use

These account terms go hand-in-hand with our Website Terms of Use (at [link]). By accepting these terms, you accept those too. If there is ever disagreement between the two on a point about your account, these account terms will apply.

The Website Terms apply to everyone who uses the site, whether or not they have a Library account. We may update them from time to time, and any new version applies from the moment we publish it on the website. (Changes to these account terms work differently – see section 8.)

4.        What we hold, and why

We hold only four things:

• your email address;
• your password — stored securely in scrambled form, so that even we can't read it;
• your reading information (i.e. the works you add to your bookshelf, your reading progress through those works, and any passages you bookmark); and
• the date you last accepted these terms.

That's all. We don't collect anything else about you.

We use this data only to run your account and give you access to the Library – nothing more, unless you choose email alerts (section 5). Data protection law requires us to state the legal basis permitting us to process your data, which is as follows: we rely on our agreement with you to run your account, and we rely on your consent for any alerts.

We don't sell your data, and we don't share it – except with the trusted suppliers who host the Library securely for us, and only so they can do that job.  Where that means storing data outside the UK, we make sure it's protected to UK standards.

We keep your data for as long as you have an account. If you close it, we'll delete your data within 30 days, unless we need to keep something longer for legal reasons.

Your data is yours. At any time you can ask us by email at DPO@light-en.org to show you what we hold, correct it, delete it, send you a copy, or stop using it in a particular way. If you're ever unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk (though we'd hope you'd come to us first).

5.        Alerts — only if you'd like them

Over time we may add new works to the Library and we may decide to alert existing users. If you'd like us to email you if/when we do that, tick the relevant box to opt in. It's entirely your choice, and it is not a condition of having an account. You can change your mind and turn alerts off at any time by clicking unsubscribe in an alert email.

Unless you opt in, we'll only email you about the account itself – for example, to help you reset your password.

6.        Copyright; and reading the Library

To display a work from the Library for you to read, your browser needs to place a temporary copy of it on your device. This makes it possible for you to read the work on- or offline.  We give you permission for that: a personal, non-exclusive licence to open and read the works for your own use, lasting for as long as you have an account. That permission covers only (1) the temporary copy, and (2) the ability to share extracts with others (for example through our ‘Gift this Quote’ function); and it ends when your account does. We can give this permission only for works that a rightsholder has licensed to us; some of the works in the Library are in the public domain and are free for anyone to use as they wish.

7.        Sharing what you find here

The Library is here for you to read, sit with, and return to – and our hope is for the wisdom in these writings to travel as widely as possible. If something moves you, you're welcome to share what you've found: to carry its message to others in your own words, to quote it modestly with a clear acknowledgement of its source, and/or to point people towards the Library itself. All we ask is that it's done in integrity: true to the meaning, generous in acknowledgement, never distorted, and never sold on or passed off as your own.

We ask that you do not reproduce the publications wholesale – and in any case the Library is built so that downloading and exporting aren't possible and copying is limited (your bookmarks and saved passages stay within your account and can't be exported).

8.        If we change these account terms

If at any point we need to change these account terms, we'll show you the new version the next time you log in and ask you to accept it. You'll keep full access once you do. If you decide not to accept, you can close your account instead (section 9).

9.        Closing your account

You can close your account at any time from within your account, or by emailing us at library-of-light@light-en.org. We may suspend or close your account if you break these terms or use the Library in a way that harms it or others and, where we reasonably can, we'll tell you why first. Whoever closes the account, we delete your data as set out in section 4.

10.  What we can and can't promise

The Library is offered free, and with care. We'll take reasonable steps to keep it running and your data safe, but we can't promise the Library will always be available or completely free of glitches, and from time to time we may need to pause it (for instance, to improve it).

The Library gathers writing from many traditions, worldviews and eras. We've kept all works as they are, out of respect for them – we don't necessarily endorse everything in them, and we ask you to read with discernment.  To learn more, please read our ‘Wisdom in Context’ statement.

In addition to the above, these terms limit our liability to you. We're responsible to you for loss we could reasonably have foreseen if we break these terms or fall short of reasonable care and skill. We're not responsible for loss we couldn't reasonably have foreseen; for anything outside our reasonable control; or for any business loss. And nothing in these terms limits our responsibility where the law does not allow it.  We believe this position is fair, given that the Library is a free facility, offered in Service.

11.  The law that applies

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts (only) can deal with any dispute.

12.  Contacting us

For any questions or concerns, please contact us at library-of-light@light-en.org.