How do the Los Rios Libraries handle authorization for access to electronic resources?
Answer
The Los Rios Libraries use EZproxy to manage authorized access to licensed electronic resources for students and employees. Each college has a separate EZproxy service, which allows us to more accurately provide access to college-specific electronic resources. It is important that users are routed through the appropriate college's EZproxy server to ensure access to content they are authorized to view.
Links to electronic resources from the databases pages and full-text links in OneSearch direct users to EZproxy. EZproxy checks the IP address of the user to see if they are on campus. IP addresses are registered with our database vendors, so the vendor is able to recognize users as coming from an authorized college. If EZproxy determines that the user is on campus, it sends them on to the resource directly. This means that students, employees, and guests using public computers or connected to the LRCCD wifi network will be able to access electronic resources.
If EZproxy does not recognize the user's IP address as part of an on-campus IP range, EZproxy sends the user to the Single-Sign-on (SSO) page. Users will log in to SSO as they do for other Los Rios online services. Only active users will be allowed to access library electronic resources. Active users are current employees and students enrolled in the current semester.
For non-SSO users–meaning users who need limited access to our resources but are not currently affiliated with our colleges, such as vendors working on support tickets or temporary contractors–an alternative login page is available.
If EZproxy accepts the user as authorized, it passes pages on to the user’s browser. EZproxy rewrites the URL and you will see https://[www-example-com].[college]losrios.idm.oclc.org/ in the browser address bar.
Off-campus users are assigned one or more EZproxy groups when they sign in via SSO. SSO checks to see that the user is active in Los Rios, and which colleges they are affiliated with. All active Los Rios users will be able to access electronic resources that are shared between the colleges, but only users with a college-level group assignment will be able to access college-specific resources.