Skip to Main Content

Using Electronic Resources

Campus VPNs

Some UPenn school and departmental Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are inadvertently preventing access to library subscription e-resources.

When using these VPNs, configured to direct traffic in certain directions only, proxy determines that the user is on-campus and does not prompt a log in, directing the user instead to the restricted resource unproxied, at which point access is denied.

One solution is to use the UPenn University Client VPN. This VPN puts a home computer virtually on the university network and remedies the e-resource access problems. 

In addition, this VPN can simplify the downloading of PDFs into citation management programs (Zotero, EndNote) when off-campus.

Instructions are provided here:

https://www.isc.upenn.edu/how-to/university-vpn-getting-started-guide