Frequently Asked Questions - Access

Access to commercial e-resources can only be granted via a secure route – ie via the IP address/es of a subscribing institution.  

In order to gain access to commercial e-resources, subscribing institutions must provide the static and external/public IP address of their secure network. 

Access is not available by username and password as these details can be easily shared, and the resources on offer through EIFL-Licensing have a very high commercial value.  

IP addresses are allocated to any device participating in a computer network – both private networks and the public internet.   

IP addresses can either be internal/private or external/public.  An external/public IP address is one that is accessible from the internet.  An internal/private IP address is one that is accessible only from the internal institutional network.

Only external/public IP addresses are suitable for providing institutional access to licensed commercial e-resources because they are the only ones that are accessible from the internet.

IP addresses are either static or dynamic.  A static IP address is one that is fixed and never changes.  Dynamic addresses are assigned every time users log on to the network or internet.

Only static IP addresses are suitable for providing institutional access to licensed commercial e-resources because they don't change.

 Find out more about IP addresses

We recommend that you ask your IT department to provide you with the external/public IP address/es of your institution's network.  

Please note that in order for your institution be able to subscribe to, and access, commercial e-resources, the IP address/es you provide must be external/public, static and only provide access to your institution’s secure network.

Please contact us at subscriptions [at] eifl.net if you have any questions.

In order to access commercial e-resources, subscribing institutions must provide vendors with their external/public IP address/es as these are used to access the internet.  

The most basic format includes a simple set of 4 blocks of numbers with a minimum of 0.0.0.0 and a maximum of 255.255.255.255 (although neither of these are valid for use for commercial e-resources).

A typical IP address would look like this: 122.140.201.66

IP addresses can also be shown as a range, for example:     122.140.201.66-144 or 122.140.201-205.* (* represents 0-255)

IP addresses can also be shown in CIDR format for example:

122.140.201.0/24 (this represents 122.140.201.*)

For many institutions, the external/public IP address is the address of the proxy server (see Wikipedia entry).

Individual computers which are part of an institutional network may have internal/private IP addresses linking them to the proxy server.  Internal/private IP addresses are not visible on the internet so cannot be used to gain access to commercial e-resources.

The following are examples of internal IP address ranges:

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255 (CIDR = 10.0.0.0/8)

172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 (CIDR = 172.16.0.0/12)

192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 (CIDR = 192.168.0.0/16)

EIFL-licensed resources are only available to members of our partner library consortia in eligible countries (i.e. ones covered by agreements for individual resources).

If your institution wishes to take part in an agreement, you should contact the EIFL-Licensing Coordinator in your country. They will be able to help you through the process.

However, in general terms, the standard subscription process is as follows. (Please note that it may be slightly different in some cases.)

Eligible institutions need to:

1. Review the terms of the relevant licence. The licence is for reference only and does not need to be signed.

2. Sign the licence acceptance form.

3. Send the signed licence acceptance form either to the EIFL-Licensing Coordinator or to the person/address listed on the form.

4. Arrange payment (if applicable).

Once payment has been received (if applicable), vendors will notify subscribing institutions/EIFL-Licensing Coordinators (as appropriate) by email when access has been set up.  

We recommend that institutions save this notification email as it will contain important information about access, how to use the resource, how to change account details (for example IP addresses), and how to generate usage reports.