Accessing Brill’s online resources

Our institutional licenses offer customers unlimited concurrent access to our content. We want to make sure that researchers can access our content anytime and anywhere. That’s why Brill’s platforms confirm with industry standards to facilitate secure access to Brill’s online content. 

We offer several access methods. These are available for all Brill’s online resources*, unless otherwise specified. Multiple access methods can be used at the same time.

1.   Federated access
2.   IP recognition 
3.   Secure proxy server and VPN
4.   Off-site access 
5.   Google CASA

For any questions regarding access methods for Brill’s online resources, please contact sales@brill.com

1.    Federated access (SAML based access, also known as Shibboleth and OpenAthens)

Federated access is a type of single sign-on that allows users to use their institution’s credentials to authenticate on our platforms. Brill works with two software solutions that facilitate federated access (SAML 2.0): Shibboleth and OpenAthens (note: OpenAthens also acts as a non-country federation).

Brill is a member of several country-level federations and we send our metadata to Edugain. A list of the federations supported can be found here.

How to set it up?

• Check that you have an Identity Provider that supports SAML based authentication
• If your institution is a member of a country federation such as those listed on the EduGain site then your Identity Provider (IdP) metadata should automatically be imported into our system
• Contact sales@brill.com and provide the entity ID (Shibboleth) or OpenAthens ID
• Our team will complete the set up and inform you
• As library administrator, you can view your settings for Shibboleth or OpenAthens access at the admin portals (see below)

Researchers can login via the ‘Login via Institution’ button on every product page to access your institution’s holdings.

2.    IP recognition

This method allows researchers to access Brill content via their institution’s IP address.

How to set it up?

• Please register your institution for free at https://app.theIPregistry.org and confirm the IPs currently registered to your institution. To communicate any IP address updates, simply login to your account and add or delete the relevant IP address(es). The updates will be checked and verified before they are updated on our publishing platform and you’ll get an immediate error message from theIPregistry.org if you try to enter an IP address that corresponds to the wrong country or is already registered to another institution. For an overview of the benefits and features of the registry please visit https://www.psiregistry.org/theipregistry.
• As library administrator, you can view your IP range(s) at the admin portals (see below)

Researchers that are accessing from the correct location (IP) will automatically have access to your institution’s holdings.

3.    Remote access via Secure Proxy Server or Virtual Private Network (VPN)

This method allows researchers to join their institution’s network remotely via a proxy or VPN and gives them IP access to our content.

There are many different proxy products in use with varied and diverse capabilities and complex configuration requirements. For this reason, we are unable to formally provide support for proxy servers and cannot guarantee that they will work. Any proxy-related access issues should be directed to the proxy vendors' support teams.

Brill and Brillonline sites are often accessed via EZProxy, that rewrites the URLs of online content.

On order to make sure the user is authenticated, it is necessary for the libraries to install the following OCLC Stanzas:

• Brill, BrillOnline and Scholarly Editions stanzas
• Liblynx Stanza: a missing stanza for Liblynx which is being used for this link.
• Cookie Law Stanza

Support for EZProxy is handled by OCLC who can be contacted here.

How to set it up?

• Contact sales@brill.com and provide the IP address for your proxy server
• As library adminstrator, you can view your IP range(s) at the admin portals:)
• For ebooks and ejournals (brill.com): https://ams.brill.com (you can activate your institutional admin account by going to https://ams.brill.com/forgotpassword)
• For all other resources: https://subs.brillonline.com/ (please contact us via sales@brill.com if you need your user id and password)

Researchers that are accessing via the proxy server will automatically have access to your institution’s holdings.

Note that some of the functionality on www.brill.com (reCaptcha in forms and payment in our webshop) is blocked by EZproxy, which can impact the user experience. We are working on a solution, but the workaround is to go to www.brill.com directly (not via your proxy). 

4.    Off-site access

This method provides off-campus researchers with one-click access to their institutional subscriptions on brill.com.

How to set it up?

• This is automatically enabled for all institutions. If you want to opt-out, contact sales@brill.com.

Researchers have to visit brill.com once while on campus. The next time they visit our content on brill.com remotely, access is granted automatically based on a token that’s set on the researcher’s device. The off-campus access is valid for up to 30 days.

5.    Google CASA (Campus Activated Subscriber Access)

This method provides off-campus researchers with one-click access to their institutional journal subscriptions directly from Google Scholar search results. 

Note: this is only enabled for journal subscriptions on brill.com.

How to set it up?

• This is automatically enabled for all institutions. If you want to opt-out, contact sales@brill.com.

Researchers have to visit Google Scholar once while on campus. The next time they visit our content via Google Scholar remotely, access is granted automatically based on a CASA token that’s set on the researcher’s device. The off-campus access is valid for up to 120 days. It’s not necessary to have a Google account, researchers simply go to Google Scholar with the same device they used on campus.

* An overview of Brill’s online resources, the librarian admin portals and supported access methods:

**  You can activate your institutional admin account by going to https://ams.brill.com/forgotpassword

*** Contact us via sales@brill.com if you need your user id and password

Definition of terms

• Single Sign-On: A broad term for using a single credential to log in to multiple systems and websites.
• Federated access: A form of single sign on that allows users to use a single credential to authenticate across multiple enterprises’ systems and websites (e.g. using your university credential to log in to brill.com, ScienceDirect, Wiley Online, etc.). 
• Shibboleth and OpenAthens: Software solutions that facilitate the federated access method. Institutions normally use one software or another and some publishers will prompt users down one path or another. OpenAthens also acts as a non country federation.
• SAML based authentication: A technical term for federated access. The message we send from the Brill Service Provider to the institution’s Identity Provider are in Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).
• Federations: Country level organizations that institutions and publishers can join to facilitate the exchange of metadata between the two that underlies the federated access method. There is a global federation called EduGAIN that country level federations are members of and which facilitates the exchange at a global level for those who opt in.