2009/02/11

Trasparently Accesing Georgetown eJournals from Home

The following instructions tell you how to access ejournals transparently from home, with your Georgetown University Library account. (e.g. when you access "www.nature.com", you will automatically be redirected to "0-www.nature.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu" which will serve you the page thru the Georgetown library proxy. You will be asked for your library account and password.)

Of course, you can always go to eJournals from home by accessing http://0-www11.tdnet.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/frames.asp, but this can be a hassle.

The redirection method is especially convenient for me, because I read my journal subscriptions through Google Reader. Using this method, I can just click on a feed article from home, and automatically get access to the full text through the library.



1. Install the Firefox addon Redirector (http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5064)

2. Restart Firefox.

3. Go to the Firefox property sheet by typing "about:config" in the address bar.

4. Find the preference key "extensions.redirector.redirects" (you can type "redirector" in the search box).


5. Double click on the key name "extensions.redirector.redirects", and copy the following text into the dialog box. (Instead of copying the key, you can also manually enter all of the redirection values by hand. See instructions at the bottom of the page.)
!!! Updated for Redirector 2.0 on Firefox 3.5 !!!

For older versions


6. Click OK to exit the dialog box. You will now be automatically redirected for most biomedical journals, including www.pubmed.com, common aggregation sites (ScienceDirect, MDConsult, Ebsco, Ovid, Ingenta, Factiva), common society journals (AMA, AAP, PNAS, ), common publishing houses (Nature Prss, OUP, Cambridge, Springer, Wiley, Karger, Thieme), and selected independent biomedical journals.



If you have eJournals which are served by the Georgetown Library proxy but aren't included in the above preprogram, you can go to Tools-Redirector, and manually enter the journal. (With redirector wildcards, the settings "http://*.nejm.org/*" "http://$1.nejm.org.extra.stuff.here/$2" will redirect "http://content.nejm.org/whateverPage" to "http://content.nejm.org.extra.stuff.here/whateverPage"

Another tip when searching from a non-academic IP address for journal articles... The "Link Out" feature can sometimes get you to an article even when the main pdf link says that you have no subscription. Sometimes, an academic institution (i.e. Georgetown, will be subscribing not to the Journal directly but through an aggregator like ScienceDirect or Ebsco, and "Link Out" can get you to the aggregator links.



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