Yeah, I've been thinking of doing this for worldcat.org too -- so the 
user will get institutional link resolver and catalog links in 
worldcat.org too, which they only get if they're from a recognized IP.  
So even though it's free... helps access.

Actually, there is one feature in worldcat.org that isn't free.  If your 
institution pays for FirstSearch Worldcat, then on worldcat.org under 
holdings, your users will see ALL worldcat holdings, not just other 
'paid' institutions -- IF the user is coming from a recognized IP.  If 
the user is not coming from a recognized FirstSearch-paid IP, they can 
only see FirstSearch-paid libraries holdings on worldcat.org.

So, yeah, I think there are times when you want/need to use proxy 
despite the resource being free. web proxy for access is a pain in 
general, I wish there was a better way actually in use of communicating 
identity than IP addresses, but that's what we've got right now.

Jonathan

Nate Vack wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:25 PM, John Wynstra<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>   
>> We have tested routing off-campus users through our local proxy (WAM) when
>> they link to Google Scholar from our library website.
>>     
>
> I believe we do this at Madison -- for Google Scholar as well as
> PubMed. Warps my mind to proxy a free resource, but it's not totally
> insane, either.
>
> -Nate
>
>