The College of New Jersey Logo

Apply     Visit     Give     |     Alumni     Parents     Offices     TCNJ Today     Three Bar Menu

My Account | Hours | Maps | A-Z |

Electronic Journal Access Problems Resolved

Recently, there have been a series of problems with access to some of our electronic journals. Most of the problems were not specific to TCNJ and were effecting libraries all over. The major issues related to our journal linking service, Science Direct, and ProQuest databases have now been resolved.

For a few weeks, there was an issue connecting from databases to specific articles in Elsevier journals on the ScienceDirect platform. The problems were not unique to TCNJ. Changes made at ScienceDirect caused linking problems for libraries all over the country. It took a while for the services we work with to identify the cause of the problem and once it was determined to be at ScienceDirect’s end, it took a surprisingly long time to come up with a solution. The problem has now been corrected and we are once again able to connect from databases to articles in our ScienceDirect collection.

Earlier this week, another database vendor, ProQuest, also had nationwide problems. ProQuest did post explanations that these connection issues were related to “the Amazon Web Services public cloud that we use to host many of our products.” This made quite a few major databases, ranging from ABI/Inform Global to Biological Sciences to Worldwide Political Science, inaccessible for a day or two. That problem has also now been resolved.

Last semester, we had widespread linking problems due to changes in the service we used to go from databases to articles. In December, we changed services and after some further adjustments since then, we believe we have restored reliable connections.

If you or your students encounter problems trying to access articles from our subscription databases, please be sure to contact us. Often, the solution is as simple as clearing your browser history but occasionally there is a system problem that we are not aware of until someone lets us know. Giving us a call at the reference desk, 609-771-2417, or using our Ask-a-Librarian service is the best way to get a report of access problems to a librarian’s attention as quickly as possible. Please see our Ask-a-Librarian page for email, text or chat contact information.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Again, don’t hesitate to get in touch via Ask-a-Librarian if you have any questions!

 

March 3, 2017

Contact

R. Barbara Gitenstein Library
The College of New Jersey
P.O. Box 7718
2000 Pennington Rd.
Ewing, NJ 08628

Hours

Maps and Floor Plans