Accessing Licensed Electronic Resources From Off-Campus Via the Proxy Server

About UW Colleges' Libraries' Licensed Electronic Resources

What Are Proxy Services?

Getting Help

Menu to Access Licensed Resources from Off-Campus

About UW Colleges' Libraries' Licensed Electronic Resources

Access to most of the databases listed on the Electronic Resources and Online Databases page has been purchased by the University of Wisconsin System or UW Colleges and therefore is legally bound by software licenses, copyright restrictions and other contractual agreements which require access to them to be restricted to UW Colleges' students, faculty and staff. In a few cases, access is restricted via IDs and passwords. In the majority of cases, however, access is restricted by the Internet addresses of the computers attempting to connect to the resource. If you are using or dialing into a computer physically located on a UW Colleges campus, you will be allowed automatic access to these types of resources because your Internet address will fall within the range pre-defined with the database vendor. If you are accessing the Internet from home or work, however, and your computer is not within the address range of any of the Colleges' campuses, you will be denied access to these restricted resources. The UW Colleges proxy server can solve this off-campus access problem.

What Are Proxy Services?

The proxy server is used to validate you as a current student, faculty or staff member of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and then act as a gateway to these licensed electronic resources when you are not physically located on one of the Colleges campuses.   The Colleges use a proxy server product called EZProxy to do this.  You simply need to click on the hypertext link to a licensed database from the Electronic Resources and Online Databases page and login with your local area network (LAN) username and password at the prompts.  This is the same login you use to access the network and your e-mail on your local campus.  You will then be identified and validated against a database of currently enrolled students and currently employed faculty and staff by EZProxy and connected to the resource you clicked on.  You will only need to log into EZProxy once during each search session.  You may also use the licensed databases from off-campus by connecting to the EZProxy Web page at https://ezproxy.uwc.edu/.

If you don't know your LAN username and password, please see the UWC Student Account Help page at https://www.uwc.edu/account/, contact the Information Technology Academic Support person at your local campus, or the UW Colleges Distance Education Library Liaisons, Marc Boucher and Renee Sikma of the UW Washington County Library, via e-mail at Online Library Services or at 1-877-861-6203 if you are a Distance Education student.

Getting Help

If you require assistance in using the UW Colleges proxy services or any of the resources on the Electronic Resources and Online Databases page, please contact your UW Colleges campus library. Distance Education students may contact the UW Colleges Distance Education Library Liaison, Marc Boucher and Renee Sikma of the UW Washington County Library, via e-mail at Online Library Services or at 1-877-861-6203.

Last updated June 18, 2007. Comments to Mary Rieder.