Be careful what you copy/paste

You've got a handy list of titles in front of you on the Request Manager screen and it's tempting to highlight and copy a title or two to paste into an e-mail notification. STOP! DON'T DO IT until you've read this...

Each title is a link--a link that includes your session ID number. If you share that link with somebody else, you're giving that person a key to enter your ILL account. Not only could they see all the information you see in the NHAIS ILL System, they could also change it!

It's possible to avoid that highly undesirable complication if you pay attention to what you're doing. When you're ready to paste a title in a mail message or other document, do a right-click and, under Paste Options, choose Keep Text Only.

To check that you've done it right, hover over the title you've pasted. If you see a URL that includes myses=, delete what you just pasted and try it again. (Or just type out the title.)

It's the alphanumeric string after myses= in the URL that directs anyone clicking on the link into your ILL session. Auto-Graphics is looking into other ways to handle the session details but, for now, this is how it works. Cookies used to be employed for this function but that was changed as they fell out of favor and many browsers are now set to block cookies. Sessions expire at midnight each night so a link copied yesterday wouldn't work today (the user would be directed to a page with an UNAUTHORIZED! message) but it's still best not to share these links at all.

It's okay to copy/paste titles from elsewhere in the NHAIS ILL System, such as search results. It's when you're in any of the modules linked from the Staff Dashboard--including Request Manager--that you need to be very, very careful. Never share a link with myses= in the URL.

If you need further help with this, contact the NHAIS Help Desk by e-mail or phone 603-271-2141.