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What Grinds Our Gears: Logging into the SFU library catalogue . . . and then every journal under the sun

This paper is due in five hours, I don’t have time to log in a dozen times

By: Meera Eragoda, Staff Writer

Have you ever been writing a paper last minute, desperately trying to find academic sources, only to have the SFU library require that you sign into every external website you click on?  The process is then frustrated so much that you contemplate just not handing in your paper at all. 

If you can’t relate, you must be the rare unicorn who allocates yourself plenty of time, and I applaud you for it. I, unfortunately, am a god of procrastination, and I’ve realized that nothing is more hair-pullingly infuriating than SFU’s library system.

When I was at Langara, one login was all it took. One login to rule them all! At SFU, however, I get the message, “You are accessing a resource that is restricted to the Simon Fraser University community. You will need to log in before you can proceed.” BUT I AM ALREADY LOGGED IN, SFU! COME ON!

I understand that SFU has way more resources than Langara does, but I assume it also has a bigger budget than Langara as well. Isn’t the whole point of signing into the library to avoid logging in 15,000 times to every individual platform thereafter? 

Unless SFU Library is prepared to deal with an outbreak of students looking like Captain Picard by the time they graduate, they really need to figure out a more efficient system. 

 

 

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