Our library databases are available on-campus, but did you know that most of our library databases are also available off-campus, as well? To access, use the links on our library web pages, our A-Z Database List, or from within Primo.
Click on a link to a database, such as Academic Search Complete or Ebook Central. If you are prompted to log in, input your KCTCS login and password into the boxes. After you have successfully logged in, the database you are trying to access should appear, and you can begin searching for articles or books in the database.
Your KCTCS Peoplesoft Email Account must be activated and you must be a currently enrolled BCTC student, or a BCTC employee, in order for you to access the BCTC Library resources off-campus. If you are a new BCTC student, be sure to activate your username and password for your college email before attempting to access. Once you are fully in the system you will be able to access library resources while off campus.
Another way to access our library resources is by clicking on the “eLibrary” link within Blackboard and selecting “Bluegrass Community and Technical College.” That will take you to the BCTC Library Services website. In addition, your instructor may have chosen to embed proxied direct links to library articles or books for you to use within your Blackboard course.
You are always welcome to reach out to the Library for help. Also, below are a few troubleshooting tips that may be useful in certain situations:
If you receive a single sign on error when attempting to access library databases, this is likely due to an effect of your browser cache retaining expired SAML authentication tokens.
Solutions:
1. Clear/Refresh your browser cache of any retained information and delete saved passwords. Then, log in again to single sign on, once you are sure your browser cache is completely cleared and you are not retaining saved passwords.
2. In future, avoid this problem by always opening library links in a new private window. (i.e. using a browser window that, when closed, does not retain any cached browser information or passwords after you close the window.) This is also sometimes known as incognito/private browsing (Chrome).
Helpful Links:
You may need to add the proxy server address as a "trusted site" to your home computer firewall software's list of trusted sites. If you are trying to log into the proxy server from work or other commercial location, contact the server administrator at your location to see if access is available to you through their firewall, or if the site can be added as a trusted source. It also may be that the college network is down temporarily or is very busy. In that case, try again later.
You will get a 502 Bad Gateway error page when you attempt to access content from a source that is either not subscribed to by BCTC, or if the source information or firewall information needed to access the database source has changed. If you receive a "502 Bad Gateway" message, please write down the name of the database you were attempting to access and report the gateway error to the library at (859) 246-6394 so we can investigate further.
Please be aware that some databases BCTC library subscribes to are available in KYVL, but not all. We supplement our KYVL subscription with subscriptions to non-KYVL resources, such as JSTOR, Ebook Central, and Academic OneFile, to name just a few. To access the full range of BCTC databases, please use the links to those specific databases on our BCTC Library Services website
Select the link labeled Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL) - Alternate Access from the BCTC Library Services A-Z Databases list.. Then, enter your KYVL login/password. You can also go directly to this link: http://www.kyvl.org/ If you want to use your Peoplesoft login/password to access KYVL, instead, go to the BCTC Library Services' A-Z Databases list and select the link labeled Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL)
Occasionally some ISPs that use proprietary versions of browsers can cause problems for proxy servers. A simple workaround is to connect to the provider, minimize your session and use your own copy of Firefox or other freely available browser. Another problem is that during initial set up of dial-up, cable, or broadband connections, certain browser settings may be configured according to the ISP's own preferences, rather than the settings you need for BCTC's library login access. If you encounter difficulties, minimize your session and instead use your own copy of a downloaded browser such as Firefox when accessing library resources.
Make sure you have the free Adobe Reader installed on your home computer. It is needed for opening and displaying PDF documents.
Many Adobe Acrobat documents are quite large: their size is often measured in Megabytes (millions of bytes) rather than Kilobytes (thousands of bytes), as is the case with most HTML files. This can cause problems when you are on a slow connection.
A common symptom is that nothing happens after you click on a link to an Adobe Acrobat file. The Adobe Acrobat window comes up, but the document remains blank. In such cases, your solution might be to download the file onto your hard drive and view or print it from there. The process is as follows:
The file is now saved onto your hard drive. You can open the PDF file by double-clicking on it.
In most cases, you must go through the college's library database links in order for your KCTCS login/password to work. The database company doesn’t know you are an authorized user unless you access through the sign on system set up for our college. You enter your login/password information, and then you are redirected to the database itself. If you try to bypass the proxy server by going directly to the database supplier's site (ebsco.com, etc), the database supplier will not recognize that you are a BCTC student, and won't permit access. The proxy server is the "gatekeeper" that checks to see if you are an off-campus BCTC student before you are allowed access.
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