Off-Campus Access to Library Resources
Why a Proxy Server? What is A Proxy Server?
The University Library holds campuswide site licenses to many electronic resources to provide the university community with a wide variety of high-quality resources. Use of these resources is restricted by the providers to current UIC faculty, staff, and students in accordance with the providers' requirements. Some of these electronic resources require campuswide user ids and passwords. Others such as Britannica Online or Ovid allow access only from machines whose domain name ends in uic.edu. Our proxy server allows both options for our off campus users.
UIC faculty, staff and students who use commercial Internet service providers from off-campus--such as America Online, AT&T Worldnet, Earthlink, Interaccess, etc.--may connect to UIC resources via the library's authentication software. Called a proxy server, the authentication software provides validation of UIC affiliation and allows access to UIC-restricted databases, reference sources, and electronic journals using your Web browser. It can be used anywhere using any web browser -- even behind firewalls or with ISDN/DSL/Cable Modem systems using their own proxy server.
Generally, off-campus access should require no special configuration of your browser. (Note the possible exceptions listed below.)
You will need a netid and password for validation.
When you try to connect to any of the resources listed below from outside the
uic.edu domain (off campus home or office), you will connect to the UIC WWW Authentication Service and be prompted for your netid and password and then
connected to the resource. DO NOT ENTER YOUR NETID AND PASSWORD ON ANY OTHER SCREENS. (To see what this screen looks like, CLICK HERE.)
Once validated, you will stay authorized for 1-2 hours. If you change databases your validation will continue. Afteryour validation has expired, you will be prompted to enter your netID and password again.
Access through Workplace Firewalls
JULY 2003: Thanks to a recent upgrade to our proxy server, as long as your workplace allows normal web access through their firewall (on port 80), you should be able to reach any UIC resources without doing any particular configuration of your workstation or your workplace's firewall. Please let us know if you are experiencing any difficulties with this.
Possible Exceptions to Configuration Requirements:
VPN, Internet Explorer, AOL
VPN (Virtual Private Network) software lets you control a work desktop from
home, and is useful for encrypting information exchanged between your home
and office. But there can be problems when accessing UIC Library licensed resources
online. Although it mimics your office computer, VPN or VNC does not share
the IP address of your office computer. Therefore, it is necessary to leave
the VPN application and start up a browser on the off-campus desktop.
Then go to the Library web site
and use the provided links to search the library's resources.
There are two exceptions to the general rule of not using VPN for library
resources: Scifinder Scholar and Beilstein/Gmelin
chemistry databases. Because
of their unique client server plug-ins, you must use VPN or
ACCC dial-in lines, NOT cable or DSL, to connect off-campus.
ATTENTION Microsoft Internet Explorer Users: Many UIC users are successfully using MSIE to connect to UIC-licensed resources via the proxy server, but a lot of MSIE users experience problems. If you have had difficulties with the proxy server with Internet Explorer, first try the following:
- Go to the Tools menu.
- Scroll down to the menu option entitled Internet Options and select it.
- Click on the Advanced tab.
- Scroll down the page until you see HTTP 1.1 settings, as follows:
- Check the option Use HTTP 1.1 through proxy connections. Make sure that both boxes in that section are checked.
- Click Apply, then OK
We hope this will fix any difficulties you have. Some users may continue to experience difficulties; we have tried to detect a pattern (release numbers, ISPs, conflicting software, etc.) to no avail. Microsoft has not provided any information regarding this issue.
America Online (AOL) Users: As noted at the top of this page, the AOL browser does not work correctly with the library's web pages or with UICCAT. However, if you connect using AOL, minimize the AOL browser (do not exit the AOL browser or you will lose your connection), then use a different web browser (preferably Internet Explorer), you should be able to use our UIC-restricted resources without difficulty.
If you continue to experience difficulties, please report all problems to Library Systems via our Technical Help Request Form, and we will do our best to assist you.
A Note for Faculty and Staff Who Write Web Pages at UIC
Please note: The Library's proxy server, called EZProxy, uses a specially encoded URL. If you maintain web pages at UIC with links to the library's UIC-restricted resources, your URL must begin as follows:
http://proxy.cc.uic.edu/login?url=
So, for example, a connection to the Library's subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica would read as follows:
http://proxy.cc.uic.edu/login?url=http://www.eb.com:180
For further information and assistance in writing links to UIC-restricted library resources, please contact the Library Systems staff at lib-sys@uic.edu
UIC-Restricted Library Resources
The proxy server gives you access to the services listed below, and many others:
- ABC-Clio (America History and Life & Historical Abstracts)
- American Chemical Society journals (selected)
- American Institute of Physics journals
- Annual Reviews
- Archives USA
- CIAO - Columbia International Affairs Online
- CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- Engineering Village
- First Search
- GeoRef
- Harrison's Online
- Historical Abstracts
- International Index to Music Periodicals
- Karger journals
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
- MathSciNet and ZMath (article databases in mathematics)
- OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
- Nature journals
- Project Muse journals
- Proquest Dissertations & Theses
- Royal Society of Chemistry journals
- Science
- SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) journals
- Sociological Abstracts
- Springer (International and US) journals
- Stat-USA
- ISI Web of Knowledge
Ask A Librarian @ UIC if you have questions or comments about any of the library's resources.
Some Troubleshooting Tips You Can Try Yourself
Checking your "cookie" settings
Check to see that your Netscape or IE is set to accept cookies -- the proxy server uses cookies. The cookies settings are in the same ADVANCED/SECURITY area of the Preferences/Options settings of your browser.
Clear your browser cache (Netscape and Internet Explorer)
Empty your browser's cache, by doing the following:
| Netscape, version 4.6 and up |
Internet Explorer, version 5 and up |
- Go into the Edit menu in Netscape Navigator, then select the PREFERENCES option at the bottom of the edit menu.
-
In the resulting window, click on the plus (+) next to ADVANCED, then click on the word CACHE.
Click on the button labeled CLEAR DISK CACHE, then in the popup window that follows, click OK. This will clear out allthe old files in your disk cache.
- Click the OK button at the bottom of the Preferences window to close it.
- Hold down the shift key and click on the RELOAD button in the icon bar at the top to force-reload the front page and make sure that you have the most recent content.
|
- Click on the TOOLS menu
- Pick INTERNET OPTIONS
- Under "TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES" on the resulting screen, click on the "DELETE FILES" button.
- Click OK to close the Internet Options screen.
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If you continue to experience difficulties, please complete all of the requested information on The Technical Help Request Form and we will work with you to attempt to eliminate your problem.
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