Research Support

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On/off campus access

The Library provides access to over 7,000 journals and databases.
Our electronic resources can be accessed on-campus and off-campus.
Most electronic resources are protected to ensure that only Kumamoto University staff or students can gain access - this is known as "authentication" and it can take several forms.
Some resources are free for public use and therefore don't use any form of authentication, whether they are accessed from on-campus or off-campus.

On campus

ip authentication
The most common way that resources are authenticated is by limiting access to the specific range of ip (Internet) addresses used by computers at Kumamoto University. Please note that any laptop using the University's WiFi service will have a Kumamoto University ip address.
If you are on-campus, therefore, just click straight through to the resource.

Off campus

GakuNin  (Shibboleth authentication)

Kumamoto University is a part of the Academic Access Management Federation in Japan (GakuNin).
Some resources use a system called Shibboleth for authentication. When using this method, you will be required to enter your Kumamoto University username and password - Shibboleth then connects to the central University servers to verify that your details exist and are entered correctly.

You can access some E-journals and Databases off campus via Shibboleth authentication. Log in your own Kumamoto University ID.

How to Use GakuNin (English)