Best Practices for Linking to Library-Subscribed eResources
- Jacquie Samples
- Heather Baker
Scope: These best practices were communicated to the 5 "everyone" lists on June 26, 2020 after programmatic changes to EZproxy were made after a security certificate update was made by Core Services to comply with OIT standards. For about 23 years, having the EZProxy prefix automatically prepended to URLs in the Books & Media catalog has served to ensure that users are forced to authenticate for licensed resources. The Metadata & Discovery Strategy Department met with members of the Assessment & User Experience Department, Resource Description Department, and Core Services to develop a long-term solution. That solution means that URLs to subscribed eResources will include the proxy prefix in Aleph. Links provided to patrons should be to the Books & Media catalog in order to ensure that authentication errors are minimized.
Contact: Jacquie Samples
Unit: Metadata & Discovery Strategy department
Date last reviewed: 12/7/2020
Date of next review: 03/31/2023
Linking to individual records in the Books & Media catalog, or the Online Journal Titles list, rather than directly to an ebook or an ejournal on a publisher’s platform, is the most stable way to provide access to patrons. This is the best practice and needs to be communicated broadly. If there is a need to provide direct-linking, please be sure to use the current proxy prefix.
Patrons, faculty and library staff may come across links using the incorrect proxy prefix, recognizable by seeing a security certificate warning. These links begin with https://proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url= If a patron reports this error, it can fixed by replacing that string with correct proxy prefix https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url= .
After providing the correct link to the patron, please report the problem to AskTech so that the issue can be fixed in DUL's discovery systems.
A macro to paste the new proxy prefix is available for use with MacroExpress3. Please contact Jacquie, or anyone in Metadata & Discovery Strategy.