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Accessing Resources from Off Campus: Other Common Error Messages

Not a Subscriber

If you get an error from a resource that reads, "Your institution is not a subscriber," make sure that your access point is either the Marx Library's web site at http://library.southalabama.edu/ or the Biomedical Library's web site at http://biomedicallibrary.southalabama.edu/library/. If you go directly to a database or electronic journal site without going through the Libraries' web sites, you will not be identified as being affiliated with the University of South Alabama and will not be allowed access.

If you get this message and you are going through the Libraries' web sites, contact Kathy Wheeler at webref@southalabama.edu or Trey Lemley of the Biomedical Library at medlib@bbl.usouthal.edu.

EZProxy Authorization

If you get a message that reads, "To allow / connect?session to work, your EZProxy administrator must first authorize this within the ezproxy.cfg file," this means either the Libraries do not subscribe to the resource or the database or electronic journal has not been configured to work with our proxy server.

If you encounter this error message, send an email to webref@southalabama.edu. Include the name of the journal or the database you were trying to access.

Journal Alerts and Article Links

Article links sent by email from a database may not work off campus. Journal alerts may cause a similar problem as will any links just copied and pasted from a database. There is a workaround to this.

The links to our databases that allow off-campus access have a special prefix in front of them to take you to a page to be authenticated and recognized as affiliated with the University of South Alabama. You can add this prefix to any links you get through email to be allowed off-campus access. The prefix is:

https://libproxy.usouthal.edu/login?url=

Paste this URL in front of any links you receive from journal alerts or other emails from University Libraries subscribed databases.

Paste this URL in front of any links you receive from journal alerts or other emails from University Libraries subscribed databases or when linking to an article directly in Sakai. You can use the form below to generate new links.

Step 1: Copy the URL of the article or e-book, then paste (ctrl+v) it here. Include the http:// at the start of the URL.

Step 2: Press the generate button.

Step 3: Copy the new URL and paste it into e-mail, Sakai, etc.