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Library Off Campus Access: Home

VPN (GlobalProtect)

You can use the University’s VPN service, GlobalProtect, for off-campus access to online resources. Advice on how to set your connection up can be found on the iSolutions page How do I set up VPN on my device? 

EZproxy

We are currently enabling off-campus access to many library e-resources (including book, journals and databases) via EZproxy. This will mean that you do not need to use VPN. Click through to the resource you need from our LibGuides pages and use your University login when prompted for full access. You will remain logged in while your browser window is open. 

You can find out more about EZproxy, including troubleshooting information in our EZproxy guide

Not all suppliers offer EZproxy authentication – some Law resources, Box of Broadcasts (Learning on Screen), Digimap, Times Higher and e-content requiring a specific username and password still require VPN (GlobalProtect) or logging in using the 'sign in via your institution' option. 

'Sign in via your institution'

If you click through to a resource from the library website and do not have full access, look for the ‘Sign in via your institution’ or ‘UK Access Management Federation’ option. This may also be called Institutional Login.

Some students are not able to install VPN (GlobalProtect) on their computers, eg if they are on placement in NHS trusts. If this affects you, Institutional Login provides access to many of our online resources. The video below shows how to use the Institutional Login.

Password-protected resources

You will see that some resources in our A-Z Resources list have a padlock icon. This means that you will need to use an extra username and password even if you are using VPN. Click on the padlock for the details, or see our full list of username and passwords. 

Information for NHS staff and students

If you are accessing University resources on an NHS placement, EZproxy  and VPN (GlobalProtect) will not work with NHS firewalls so please use your Institutional Login. 

Students on NHS courses, and NHS staff, will require a OpenAthens login to access some of their resources.  Details of how to register for an account can be found on our OpenAthens page. 

Accessing journal articles

LibKey Nomad, part of our BrowZine subscription, is a browser extension that integrates with Wikipedia, publisher websites and PubMed to give you easy access to the full text of journal articles. If we do not have a subscription, LibKey Nomad searches for legal open access copies. VPN (GlobalProtect) is required for off campus access.

When you land on a page with an article that is available to download, LibKey Nomad presents a banner alert at the bottom of your screen. Click to download the PDF. 

 

LibKey Nomad login page for University of Southampton

When you have installed the browser extension, links to journal articles in Wikipedia references automatically display:

Screenshot of the references section from a Wikipedia page showing LibKey Nomad 'Download PDF' links