Methods for increasing the access to information databases using open source tools

This paper proposes some methods aimed at increasing the access to information databases. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the current state of access to databases in our university. The second part presents a short survey regarding the authentication methods offered by the most preeminent content providers, while the third part of the paper presents some methods to access these information providers when teachers/researchers/students may not access them from the university campus. This part also presents two methods for improving the user experience when navigating between the subscribed pages and the normal, free web.