[Web4lib] Moving from Apache to EZProxy

[Bill Jordan]

we made a similar move 18 months ago.  most users were thrilled to be rid 
of the need to configure their browsers, and the number of helpdesk calls 
dropped dramatically.

we ran the two systems in parallel for a full academic year, and I finally 
decommissioned the old service last July.  I got some complaints at that 
point from users who rely heavily on electronic tables-of-contents 
services.  we developed a couple of mitigation tools, including a proxy 
bookmarklet.  When they follow an etocs link and arrive unauthenticated at 
the vendor's site, they can hit the bookmarklet and it routes them through 
EZProxy and back to the vendor page where they started.  works well for 
most, but not all, vendors.

See http://www.lib.washington.edu/help/connect.html for more information.

--Bill

****************************************************************
William Jordan
Associate Director of Libraries
Information Technology Services
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900, Seattle, WA 98195-2900
Voice: (206) 685-1625   Fax: (206) 543-5457
****************************************************************

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 at 11:00, B. Frazier wrote:

> We are moving from an Apache proxy server to EZProxy.  I want to know what
> problems people have had on the public service side.
>
> Specifically I am interested in what happens when the library patrons were
> once able to find an item on Google or any subscription website and it
> triggered the proxy server if their browser was configured.  With EZProxy
> the patron will have to go to the library website and find the link to that
> item to utilize the proxy server.  Have there been complaints?  A great need
> for patron training?
>
> Has anyone figured out a way around this so that EZProxy is triggered
> regardless of where the user finds it on the web?
>
> Barbaraella Frazier
> Reference Librarian
> Penrose Library
> Whitman College
>
> (509) 527-5915
> fraziebe at whitman.edu
>
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