If you encounter an error message accessing library databases, you may have to clear your browser’s cache and cookies to alleviate the access error.

Why does this help with login issues?

Your browser’s cache and cookies could simply be overwhelmed from repeated visits to the vendor’s or library’s website. This causes issues that interfere with your attempts login in to library databases. Clearing your cache and cookies will often allow you access to library resources as usual.

Clearing your cache and cookies looks slightly different depending on the browser that you typically use to access library services.

For IE, Firefox, and Chrome, there is a convenient shortcut to clear your cache and cookies. While in the browser, hold down the shift, control, and delete keys at the same time (for Mac users: Shift + Command + Delete), and a window will pop up:

Clearing cache and cookies in IE:

Clearing cache and cookies in Firefox:

Clearing cache and cookies in Chrome (be sure to select "All time" from the drop-down menu!):

To clear cache and cookies in Safari, follow the instructions on this Canvas guide.

Finally, no matter which browser you have cleared cache and cookies from, close down your browser completely and then reopen it. If the problem is not resolved, please email us and let us know which database or article you are trying to access, what the error message says, which browser you are using, and which version of the browser.