How is access to Ebook Central books managed in the context of the OLS or campus managed EZproxy servers?
Ebook Central (EBC) has elected to use IPs as its primary authentication method, not EZproxy. For this reason, the EBC URL does not have an EZproxy prefix. So instead of using the standard proxied URL, e.g. http://[myproxyserver].cuny.edu/login?url=https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/[myEBC-ID], the "direct" URL must be used, as in: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cuny-ebooks
The Ebook Central server checks a user's IP address, and, if necessary (e.g., the user is outside the on-campus IP range), sends the user back to the EZproxy server for authentication purposes.
There are 3 areas where things are configured:
- The EZproxy configuration for EBC "Single-Sign-On" is explained here: https://help.oclc.org/Library_Management/EZproxy/Database_stanzas/Ebook_Central?sl=en The stanza must be placed towards the top of the configuration file, before any ExcludeIP directives. Since the IP access is controlled by EBC, any IP bypass configuration in EZproxy must be ignored (which is what ExcludeIP is used for). This is how all the OLS-managed EZproxy servers are configured.
- The EBC Alma collection *AND* its service must not be proxy-enabled during the initial activation. As a result, none of the EBC portfolios are proxy-enabled.
- Our understanding is that the list of "Anonymous Access IPs" needs to be configured in Ebook Central Admin. For more information, see https://support.proquest.com/s/article/Ebook-Central-Admin-IP-Restrictions-in-LibCentral?language=en_US: "For SSO models (... or EZproxy SSO), these can be added to give on-campus users the ability to browse without first signing in."
