Help : Technical Support : Resources and Services: Known Problems

Some resources or services don't work properly with some browsers or computer configurations:

Books 24x7
Borrow Direct
Chat - Live online
China Data Online
NetLibrary
RSS feeds for licensed resources


Books24x7

Problem
You’re on campus or dialing into Cornell via EZ-Remote. Recently your bookmarks for Books24x7 resources stopped working. Or you’re getting prompted for your netid and password.

Solution
On August 12, 2005, the publisher of Books24x7 implemented a new method of accessing this resource. Most users of Books24x7 - including on-campus users and those coming in via Cornell's EZ-Remote modem pool – are now routed through the Library's authentication system. You’ll be prompted to log in to SideCar or CUWebLogin.

If you had set up a Books24x7 bookmark beginning with library.books24x7.com, this bypasses the Library’s authentication system; you’ll see a message telling you to log in through your library.

You can access Books24x7 resources by finding them in the online catalog and clicking on the links. For information on setting up bookmarks for these resources, see Bookmarking Resources FAQ.

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Borrow Direct

Problem
You can enter your patron ID and last name and get in. But when you click on Searching/Requesting or Review Your Requests, you get an Internal Server Error.

Solution
Borrow Direct uses a "referring URL" type of authentication. Some firewalls, including Norton Personal Firewall, Symantec Client Firewall, and ZoneAlarm Pro, will block referring URLs. For Symantec Client Firewall - the firewall distributed by Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) - you can easily disable the firewall (temporarily, of course) to determine if it's causing a problem with Borrow Direct. To allow Borrow Direct to work with the firewall, do the following: Under Privacy Control/Configure/Advanced, add in borrowdirect.library.yale.edu. Then change its settings there - under the "Information about visited sites" heading, select "permit same site". For Norton, visit their web site for information on how to allow referring URLs (in this case, borrowdirect.library.yale.edu). For ZoneAlarm Pro, make sure that the privacy panel's cookie control custom button to "Remove private header information" is unchecked.

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Chat

Problem
Can't connect to the chat service.

Solution
For Windows XP users with Service Pack 2 installed, a built-in firewall in the browser may be preventing you from being able to chat with the librarian. Instructions for configuration can be found here: http://www.247ref.org/instructions/servicepack2guide.html.

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China Data Online

Problem
You can't access data from this resource.

Solution
Make sure to click on the Direct Access for Institutional Users link, near the top left of the screen, when you begin using China Data Online.

Our subscription does not give us access to all of the data - most notably, we don't have access to the census information.

Many of the databases are interactive; you'll need to select years and other delimiters. Unfortunately, the selection process only seems to work in Internet Explorer (and not in Firefox, Netscape, and Safari).

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NetLibrary

Problem
When you attempt to access a NetLibrary book you see "You have reached this page incorrectly", or other error messages.
If you're using a Mac, the books may not display properly.

Solution
Make sure your browser is set to allow third-party cookies.
For Mac users: NetLibrary books come in two formats, PDF and DjVu. For the PDFs, try a different browser - Safari doesn't display NetLibrary PDFs properly. For the DjVu books, the books may not work in any browser. We are looking for a solution to this.

See the NetLibrary guide for more information on NetLibrary.

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RSS feeds for licensed resources

Problem
RSS feed links to full content from licensed resources may not work.

Solution
In some cases, RSS feed links to licensed resources will only work if your computer computer has a cookie identifying you as a valid user of that resource. One such example is Factiva. RSS feed links to other licensed resources may simply not work at all.

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