What's in this article:
About Referring URLs:
We are able to support referring URL as an authentication method under the following circumstances:
- The referring URL must be password-protected, meaning users must log in some way in order to gain access, via username and password, library number, barcode ID or similar.
- The referrer does not include embedded code (such as JavaScript) to open a new window.
- Users do not have security software on their computers (for example personal firewalls) that strips the referrer information from the headers. In these cases, referring URL authentication will not work.
- Sometimes library server configurations on a website result in the HTTP referrer header not being sent. If this is the case on your website, then referring URL authentication will not work for any users.
If these conditions work for you, then all we need is the referring URL, i.e. the URL of the page that includes the link to JSTOR. Referring URLs often look something like:
https://www.exampleuniversity.edu/library/databases/
Please contact JSTOR Support for assistance with setting up referring URL authentication for your institution.
How to set up EZproxy:
For EZproxy remote access, you must be using version 6.2.2 or later and you will likely need to obtain, install, and configure an SSL certificate.
The JSTOR database definition for EZproxy is available from OCLC.
Please contact us to send in your proxy server IP address and we'll add it to our system.
How to set up OpenAthens:
If your institution uses OpenAthens and you haven’t yet added JSTOR as a resource, you’ll need to set it up in your OpenAthens administrator interface in order to access JSTOR from this service.
What you need to do:
- Log into the OpenAthens administrator interface at https://admin.openathens.net.
- Select Resources > Permission sets
- Click on the permission set that you want to change and then click on the Attributes tab (NB: the Role should already be set to ‘member’. If it is not, you should take this opportunity to set it to ‘member’).
- Click on the ‘Add a resource’ button, type JSTOR into the dropdown field and then select the JSTOR item that appears:
- Enter this text into the text box underneath JSTOR: urn:mace:dir:entitlement:common-lib-terms
- If your permission set attributes now look like this, click on ‘Save changes’:
- This will add the new JSTOR access point to your permission set automatically.
- Please be sure to contact us with your organization’s federation Entity ID information. You can find this information in the OpenAthens administration interface by clicking on Management in the menu bar and then selecting Organization & Entity IDs.