Updates on electronic resources from the library of Nottingham Trent University
Lexis have confirmed that the problems preventing Shibboleth authentication on the Lexis Library and Nexis services have now been resolved.
Access to those services is now working normally again – and information in eSearch has been updated accordingly.
If you encounter any further difficulties accessing either service, please send full details to the eServices team (including any on-screen error messages).
Due to technical problems affecting the Lexis Shibboleth service, it is currently not possible to login to either the LexisLibrary or Nexis UK service. Requests to login resolve to the following error message:
Your attempt to sign in to the LexisNexis® services via Federated Access has failed.
Lexis’s technical team is working to resolve the issue, and a further update will follow once access has been restored. Service icons, and customer notices, indicating the existence of this problem have been added to eSearch.
Guides to using Shibboleth authentication on the ACS – American Chemical Society and InformaWorld ejournal platforms have been added to the eServices Support wiki.
eBrary’s technical team report that the issue affecting access to eBook content on the platform (25 January) has now been resolved, and all relevant content should now be accessible once again. Please contact eServices it you encounter any further problems with access.
eBrary’s technical team is working to resolve a problem which is causing access problems to eBook titles on the eBrary platform.
Some customers clicking on links to eBrary eBook titles in the Library Catalogue will see their browser resolve to the eBrary site with the following error message:
The URL entered or pasted is not one we recognize. If you copied and pasted the URL to get here, please double check the format. Make sure all the terms are there and that the URL contains no spaces or return characters.
Not all requests result in the error, and eBrary’s technicians currently believe that the Internet Explorer browser in more susceptible to the problem than Firefox – and recommend trying the Firefox browser in preference (though this will not guarantee successful access).
A further update will follow once eBrary’s technical team has confirmed that the problem has been resolved.
Off-campus links to all EBSCOhost databases in eSearch resolve directly to the NTU Single Sign-on page. However, linking to individual journal and article content within EBSCOhost from SFX has until now involved several extra steps to reach the Single Sign-on page – the first of which involved clicking on the Shibboleth link in the main interface screen.
Several service calls have indicated that these extra steps (and the terminology they involve) caused understandable customer confusion. Some additional technical configuration has therefore been activated for all full-text EBSCOhost databases (namely Academic Search Elite, Business Source Premier, Psycarticles and Regional Business News) which will instead resolve the off-campus SFX customer to a UK Access Management Federation WAYF (Where Are You From?) page, from which they can select ‘Nottingham Trent University’ and be resolved directly to the NTU Single-Sign-on page (all without any reference to ‘Shibboleth’).
It is hoped that this will make the login process more straightforward and intuitive. Feedback on this refinement is welcomed. Please note that any customer who Googles their way to EBSCOhost will still need to work through the steps outlined in the EBSCOhost Shibboleth walkthrough on the eServices Support wiki.
Problems affecting the MyiLibrary Shibboleth authentication service, which began over the weekend (19-20 December), were resolved on Monday 21 December. During the interruption in service, customers logging in to MyiLibrary eBook titles using their university username and password saw the following error message:
“Unauthorized Identity Provider
The identity provider supplying your login credentials is not authorized for use with this service.”
Shibboleth authentication has been enabled for all ejournals on the Informaworld platform. At present the off-campus access to Informaworld titles supported by LLR is through a Shibbolized eZproxy connection, but in the new year authentication will be migrated to a fully Shibboleth compliant login. This changeover will mean that customers can login to Informaworld in the platform’s native interface rather than only through the special eZproxy links provided in eSearch and SFX. For the time being, customers in the native interface of Informaworld can click on the ‘Shibboleth’ login link (see illustration below) and select Nottingham Trent University from the WAYF (Where Are You From?) page.
Off-campus access to databases on the EBSCOhost platform is currently unavailable, due to problems affecting EBSCO’s Shibboleth authentication service. (On-campus access is unaffected).
When attempting to login to an EBSCOhost database from off-campus, the following error message displays:
Session Creation Failure
The inter-institutional access system was unable to successfully build a login session for you at [date and time]
To report this problem, please contact the site administrator at root@localhost. (Please note, there is no need to act on this instruction)
Please include the following message in any email:
Session creation failure at (https://shibboleth.ebscohost.com/Shibboleth.sso/SAML/POST)
Session Creation Error
The databases involved are:
This problem is affecting all UK universities using the Shibboleth framework for EBSCOhost authentication. A further update will be provided once we have received confirmation of a resolution from EBSCOhost.
IS have now fixed the user authentication problems that were affecting services campus wide. So all services that use Shibboleth or ADS authentication, such as NOW, ‘My Library Card’ in Web OPAC, eSearch and RefWorks, are working again.
However, if you do discover any further problems, then please let eServices know.
We are experiencing major problems with University username and password authentication. This is affecting access to all services that use Shibboleth or ADS authentication, such as NOW, ‘My Library Card’ in Web OPAC, eSearch and RefWorks. IS are currently investigating the problem.
In the meantime, these services are unavailable.
A further update will follow once there is more news to report from IS.
Off-campus access to the ejournal content in the ICE Virtual Library Archive has now been restored following a recent interruption in service. Access on-campus remains direct; with off-campus access by university username and password. It has proved possible to re-establish off-campus access to this content following a series of upgrades on the ICE platform. Because the ICE Virtual Library is not yet Shibboleth compliant, off-campus access is made available via eZprozy. ICE expect to be able to support Shibboleth based authentication in the near future, when LLR will migrate to full Shibboleth authentication for the service.
The ejournal content provided through the ICE Virtual Library Archive is as follows:
* Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1836-1842)
* Life of Telford (1838)
* Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1837-1935)
* ICE Engineering Division Papers (1942-1951)
* Journal of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1935-1951)
* Proceedings of the ICE Parts 1 and 2 (1952-1991)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Civil Engineering (1992-2001)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Municipal Engineer (1992-2001)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Structures & Buildings (1992-2001)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Transport (1992-2001)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Water Maritime & Energy (1992-1999)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Geotechnical Engineering (1994-2001)
* Proceedings of the ICE – Water and Maritime Engineering (2000-2001)
In addition to this archival access, LLR has current subscriptions to a number of ICE journal titles. An audit of LLR’s electronic holdings entitlements for these titles is currently underway.
eResource updates 
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