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TL;DR

  1. Check prerequisites (existing customers only):

    • Your institution is an existing Statista customer with an active Campus/institutional license.
    • You are already using EZProxy for remote access.
    • You have admin access to EZProxy config (stanzas, groups, options).

  2. Send your Statista account manager:

    • Your institution’s authentication domain (for example: university.edu).
    • Any additional domains that you use for users grouping (for example: staff.university.edu,students.university.edu)

  3. Configure and test in EZProxy:

    • Upload the provided OverDriveSite directive into your EZProxy config.
    • Reload/restart EZProxy.
    • Test the OverDrive URL (for example: https://your-institution.idm.oclc.org/OverDrive/statista) with a real user.

Introduction

This guide explains how existing Statista customers can use EZProxy with the OverDriveSite directive to authenticate users and provide access to Statista, without needing a separate identity provider.

EasyProxy with OverDriveSite is considered a last‑resort authentication method and should only be used for existing customers when other SSO methods are not feasible and no modern SAML/OIDC connection to Statista can be established.

This approach is a compatibility option for a small number of institutions that already rely on EZProxy and cannot move to newer authentication methods; it is not available as a standard option for new Statista integrations.

Disclaimer and intended audience

This onboarding guide is provided exclusively for existing Statista customers who have an active Campus or institutional license and have been approved by their account manager to use the OverDrive-style EZProxy integration.

This document is intended for:

  • EZProxy administrators at customer institutions who need to configure the OverDriveSite directive.
  • Library IT staff coordinating authentication setup with Statista.
  • Technical contacts responsible for managing remote access to licensed resources.

Important: This integration method is not offered to new Statista customers and should not be proposed or implemented as a standard authentication option. It exists solely as a compatibility measure for institutions that cannot adopt modern SSO protocols (SAML or OIDC) and have no other viable path to authenticate users for Statista access.

Prerequisites

  • Your institution is an existing Statista customer with an active institutional or Campus license.
  • Your institution is already using EZProxy for remote access to licensed resources.
  • You have administrative access to your EZProxy configuration (stanzas, groups, and options).
  • Your Statista account manager has confirmed that the OverDrive‑style EZProxy approach is permitted for your institution.
  • You can receive and securely store a shared secret that will be used in the OverDriveSite directive.

This setup must only be used when your institution has no other viable way to establish a modern SSO connection (for example, via SAML or OIDC) to Statista.

Process

Please collect the following information from your institution and provide it to your Statista account manager so we can generate the correct configuration:

  • Institution domains used for user authentication (for example: staff.university.edu, students.university.edu).
  • Main identifier for your institution (often the primary email domain, used as ILSName, for example: university.edu).

Once this information is confirmed and your eligibility as an existing customer is verified, you will receive:

  • A ready‑to‑paste OverDriveSite directive (via a secure, time‑limited link), similar to:
OverDriveSite -URL=https://www.statista.com/sso -Secret=SECRET_GOES_HERE -ILSName=yourdomain.edu statista

Add the directive to your EZProxy configuration, reload/restart EZProxy, and test the access URL provided (for example, https://your-institution.idm.oclc.org/OverDrive/statista) with a real user account that should have Statista access.

Your Statista account manager will contact you once the configuration is active on our side and your subscription is ready to use with EZProxy/OverDriveSite.

Last updated: March 24, 2026 at 10:39
By: Axel Tetzlaff