An Update on OpenAthens

McLaughlin Library uses a service called OpenAthens to provide you with secure access to our electronic resources. The transition to OpenAthens, almost one year ago, was almost seamless. You most likely did not notice any changes in how you access library resources. Your central U of G single sign-on continues to be how you access subscription-based electronic resources, both on and off campus.  

However, there are a few lingering items we’d like to highlight:

• When searching for research outside of the library website and Omni, you may be prompted to log in directly on some vendor sites through “Log in via your institution” or other similar language. When there are multiple options for University of Guelph, select the “University of Guelph Library” option.
• If links to library resources were created prior to our transition to OpenAthens (May 2025) those links may be broken. Use this conversion tool to update the links to get access to the resources.  
• If you installed the Zotero Connector before May 2025, and are receiving the following error message when trying to access online resources: “This site cannot be reached. The connection was reset. (ERR_CONNECTION_RESET)”, please follow these instructions to remove proxy information from the Zotero Connector.

Lastly, if you’re having trouble accessing any of our e-resources, try these troubleshooting tips:  

• Clear your cookies cache/browser and then try to access the resource again
• Try using a different browser (e.g. if you usually use Chrome, try Firefox) or in incognito mode
• Try using Omni instead of Google Scholar or another website to access the resource

Questions?

Contact us. We’re happy to help. 

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