Remote access to databases

[lydia]

On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Alan Bogage wrote:
> We have a number of web based periodical databases (IAC, SIRS, etc.)
> to which we need to provide remote access for our students and
> faculty.  I understand that somehow we need to create a database of
> our users which can be based on their library barcodes.  Since the
> vendors are authenticating via our ip addresses, how can a remote
> user "grab" one of our ip addresses and send that to the vendor?
> Where can I learn about how to do this?

The short answer is that what you're talking about here is setting up
a proxy server, and that it's a non-trivial task. 

I'd recommend starting with the user documentation put out by one of
the libraries that's doing this on a large scale, so you can get a
better feel for what's involved. A good bet is Northwestern (see
<http://www.library.nwu.edu/help/proxy/>); another, newer setup is at
UPenn (see <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu/>). 

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 Lydia Ievins, Systems Librarian          Office for Information Systems
 phone 617/495-3724; fax 617/495-0491     Harvard University Library
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