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GW Law Library
Research Guides

Off-Campus Access to Online Books, Journals, and Databases

Questions?

If you have any problems or questions related to the Burns Law Library's online resources, please contact us at electronicservices@law.gwu.libanswers.com.

How to Use the Burns Law Library Proxy Server

GW Law students, faculty, and staff can use our proxy server for off-campus access to most of the databases to which the Burns Law Library subscribes.  The URLs for our IP-authenticated databases in the Law Library's online guides and catalogs are already configured to use the GW Law proxy server.

The Burns Law Library proxy server authenticates users based on their GW Law School username (e.g. jdoe@law.gwu.edu) and password.  When you click on a link that is configured to use our proxy server, you'll get one of the following results:

  • If you are already logged into your GW Law account (e.g. you are checking your email through the Gmail web interface), you will be automatically passed through to your requested database.
  • If you are not logged into your GW Law account, you will see a Google login screen.  Enter your GW Law ID, and when prompted, enter your password.  The proxy server will then authenticate you and pass you through to your requested database.

Google account login screen

  • If you are logged into multiple Google accounts including your GW Law account, a webpage from Google will appear with a list of those accounts.  Select your "@law.gwu.edu" account and the proxy server will connect you to the requested database.

Google account login - choosing G W Law School account

  • If you are logged into one Google account, but it isn't your GW Law account, you might get a message saying that you are not authorized to access the database.  If so, log into your GW Law account (by checking your GW Law email, for example), and try the link again.

EZProxy Redirect extension for Chrome browsers

In the Burns Library's guides and catalogs, we've modified the URLs so they will work with the proxy server, but If you subscribe to online legal newsletters from National Law Journal or Law360, the links in those newsletters won't be formatted to work with our proxy server:  If you use Chrome as your browser in Windows or Mac OS/X, you can add an extension that will make it easy to access those links while off-campus.

  • Go to the Chrome Web Store.
  • Search for "EZProxy Redirect" and add it to your Chrome browser.
  • A button for EZProxy Redirect will appear at the top of your Chrome browser, next to the Chrome Browser menu.  Right click on it, select "options" and then select "George Washington University Law School" as your school.
  • To open a link using the Burns Library proxy server, right-click on the link and select the "Open Link with EZproxy" option.
  • NOTE: This will only work for databases for which the Burns Law Library has IP-authenticated off-campus access, and if you are a current GW Law student, faculty member, or staff member.  GW Law does not offer technical support for this Chrome extension.