Subscriptions with Remote Access
When you negotiate with a vendor for access by home users, it is important to determine how the vendor wishes to work with us to authenticate users. In general, there are two ways that users are authenticated.
- a “success URL” that is programmed into RPA includes a user name and password;
- a “success URL” that is the normal URL for the
database, but the database vendor is set up to recognize valid
“referring URL”. When a user enters RPA from the library
selection screen, the referring URL is:
http://rss.sjvls.org/rpa/default/newlinks.htm
Depending on the structure of your web pages and links, other referring URLs may be the URL of the page that they linked from, e.g. www.fresnolibrary.org/reference.html
Or the URL of the smart RPA link that they followed:
http://rss.sjvls.org/rpa/webauth.exe?lb=FRSN&rs=frwb
You will need to provide the Systems office with the following information:
- the “success URL” provided to you by the vendor
- any restrictions on use : usually valid Patron types for your jurisdiction as a way to limit us to your patrons, but you can also set limits by zip code, fines owed, number of lost items, etc.
Once the database is set up in RPA, the Systems office will provide you with a smart URL for the RPA server that links directly to the database after authentication.
If your vendor uses referring URL, you will then need to:
- Work with the vendor to identify the valid referring URLs. Make sure that the default/newlinks URL above is one of the valid referring URLs.