Goodbye ‘old-style’ Athens access

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Eduserv, the company who provide the Athens service, are decommissioning this access route on the 31 October 2016. They will no longer be providing this service for any institution. Those with long memories might remember the news three years ago regarding the move from old-style Athens to Institutional login for accessing e-resources. Since then we’ve continued to work on ensuring your access and authentication to our resources is as simple and seamless as possible, and with IT have enabled access for the majority of them via the Single Sign On (SSO) page.

Almost all of you will be used to going via the SSO page, so the news that the old-style Athens login is finally being removed should have no impact at all. However we are aware there are a few people still logging in via the old Athens sign-in page:

Athens login screen

You might have reached this page either because you have an old bookmark for a resource, or because you have found the University of Reading listed under ‘Login via Athens’ options on resource websites. After 31 October you will no longer find us listed here, we will only be listed via the Institutional login options, often shown on the same pages.

You may need to update your links

If any of your favourites or bookmarks for resources take you to the page above, you will need to replace them with up-to-date links that direct you to login via the SSO page. To find an up-to-date link:

  • Go to our Databases A-Z list.
  • Locate your resource and click on the link for it.
  • On the next page, click on the off-campus link to the resource. This should take you via the SSO page.
  • Enter your University username and password and click on log in.
  • You should now be in the resource and you can favourite or bookmark this page.
  • The next time you use your new favourite link it will automatically route you to the SSO page so you can login.

Alternatively, if you are trying to access a specific book or journal, just follow the links from the Enterprise catalogue.

Need help?

If you have any problems accessing a specific resource please fill in our e-resources problem report form and a member of the E-resources Team will investigate your issue.

Jackie Skinner, on behalf of Sue Egleton, Head of Systems & User Services