Washington and Lee University
W&L students, faculty, and staff can use our subscription databases from off-campus locations, from just about anywhere in the world.
However, you MUST enter the database, such as JSTOR, through the library site.
You cannot take any short-cuts directly to database sites, such as going straight to www.jstor.org.
When you first attempt to get into a database through our Web site, you will be prompted to enter your network ID and password. Once you do that, the proxy server will recognize you as a member of the W&L community.
The most common road-block to this procedure is that sometimes a student or faculty member in an off-campus location may be using a computer which is within another institutional or corporate network that is "protected" by a firewall. When that happens, it can be impossible to get around that firewall to identify your affiliation with W&L.
This is the University's newest option (also known as VDI for Virtual Desktop Initiative) for off-campus access to resources offered in on-campus locations. The "American Saddlebred" option can take you to the campus Web site via your browser.
Another option is W&L's Virtual Private Network (VPN). After you login, one of the primary options is "University Library Databases."
Occasionally some off-campus W&L researchers are not prompted for a network password as they attempt to connect to one of our databases. When that happens, one solution which might work is this:
You should now be able to access any database that will work with our proxy server. If you cannot, then the problem probably is a security setting on the computer or the network you are using. If the above steps do not take care of an access problem, please contact one of our Reference Librarians.