Off-Campus Access to Electronic Resources

The law library's subscriptions to Westlaw and LexisNexis for law schools do not support IP authentication. As a result, law school affiliates will always need to log in with their Westlaw or LexisNexis passwords.

If you would like to create a link to a specific Westlaw or LexisNexis document, database, or search, follow the steps below. URLs generated will direct users to a log-in screen, and once logged in will re-direct to the selected resource. 

1. Go to Westlaw and navigate to the page you wish to link to
2. Click on the 'hyperlink' icon in the upper right portion of the screen.
3. Click the "Copy Link" button.
4. The permalink to the document is now in the clipboard and can be pasted wherever it is needed. 

1. Open the document you would like to link to in Lexis Advance.
2. Next to the document title, click on "Copy Citation"
3. Check the box to "Copy citation as hyperlink," then copy the citation highlighted.
4. Paste the copied citation into your document. This citation will have a link to the original document in Lexis Advance.

1. Open Bloomberg Law and navigate to the page you wish to link
2. Get to the case, statute, regulation or article using your desired means of searching
3. Right click on the hyperlink for your document, and left-click "Copy link location" (Firefox) or "Copy shortcut" (Internet Explorer)
4. You can now paste this link

Links to Practice Area dashboards:

1. Within VitalLaw – on ALL CONTENT dashboard (available to users with subscription content on 2 or more Practice Area dashboards)
2. Right-click on Practice Area title & copy URL address

Links to databases:

1. Within VitalLaw – open ‘Subscribed Content (Titles A-Z)’, either from ALL CONTENT dashboard or clicking your UserName,
2. locate Practice Area,
3. Right-click on the database title and copy URL Address.

Links to documents:

Within VitalLaw – when viewing a document, copy the Browser address

Linking to e-resources through UMN's proxy server allows users to access those resources from an off-campus location. By using these links, users can authenticate with their UMN Internet ID, ensuring that only authorized users access our subscription content. Create links to campus e-resources for TWEN, class presentations or materials, or for sending links directly to faculty and students. The steps required are different for resources available to the entire university community v. resources available only to the law school community. No sure what steps to follow? Consult the UMN Law Library's list of electronic resources to determine if your electronic resource is provided to the greater University community or is specific to the law school.  You can also follow this tutorial on creating persistent links.

UMN E-Resources (Most Resources)

1. Take the URL you would like to link to and place http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url= before this URL. 

Example: A U.S. Congressional Committee Print, located in LexisNexis Congressional. 

• Grab the permanent url from LexisNexis Congressional:
  • HTTP://congressional.proquest.com/congressional/result/pqpresultpage.previewtitle/$2fapp-gis$2fcisindex$2f2010-j932-125/CIS+Index?accountid=14586

• Add http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url= before the url to create the final url:  
  • http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=HTTP://congressional.proquest.com/congressional/result/pqpresultpage.previewtitle/$2fapp-gis$2fcisindex$2f2010-j932-125/CIS+Index?accountid=14586  

2. If #1 does not work and/or your URL contains an ampersand (&), encode your starter URL before adding the proxy prefix. Visit http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/, paste your URL in the box, and click "Encode." 

Example: HeinOnline Congressional Record Collection

• Begin the permanent url taken from HeinOnline:
  • http://www.heinonline.org/HOL/Index?index=congrec/cr&collection=congrec

• Run this url through the encoder, linked above, to get your encoded link:
  • http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heinonline.org%2FHOL%2FIndex%3Findex%3Dcongrec%2Fcr%26collection%3Dcongrec 

• Add http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url= to the front of the encoded link to get your final url: 
  • ​http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heinonline.org%2FHOL%2FIndex%3Findex%3Dcongrec%2Fcr%26collection%3Dcongrec = 

UMN Law-Only Resources

1. Take the URL you would like to link to and place http://ezproxy.law.umn.edu/login?url= before this URL. No encoding is necessary. 

Example: U.S. Law Week (BNA)

• Begin with the url to U.S. Law Week:
  • http://news.bna.com/lwln/

• Add http://ezprozy.law.umn.edu/login?url= to the front of your link to get your final url:
  • http://ezprozy.law.umn.edu/login?url=http://news.bna.com/lwln/  

Web addresses to content provided by the UMN Law Library or greater University Libraries do not need formatting if you locate the address in the library catalog or on our list of electronic resources. 

If you locate an address elsewhere, such as a link to a direct article listed within a database, this link may need formatting to ensure you can access the article off campus. Whether or not you will need to add proxy information to a link depends on the individual database. If the link provided does not appear to contain proxy information, please follow the steps above.

If you encounter a link to a document while searching the web but cannot see the full text, check to see if the library already subscribes to this content to locate and generate a working link. See our Tips and Tricks page for more information on how to do this within your browser, or use the "Finding E-Resources" links to the left to begin searching.