Re: remote authentication

[Michele Newberry <fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu>]

Ruth,

Just a couple of quick thoughts off the top of my head:

Cliff Lynch is, of course, always an articulate speaker on this subject
who has said and/or written much of what there is to know about it.

One aspect you might want to consider that we are running into is the
tendency of commercial ISP to do their own proxying thus overriding our
proxy service.  I know that there are new proxy software products that can
get around this but we haven't had time to investigate them.  In the
meantime, many of our users are disenfranchised because of this growing
practice.  As our universities downsize their own networking services in
favor of 'outsourcing' to the commercial sector, we keep getting
blindsided by those ISPs whose objective is to either a) maximize their
resources or b) optimize the information they can collect about our mutual
customers using techniques that often undermine our primary objective
which is to deliver services as quickly and easily as possible.  And,
quite often, the libraries are the only units on the campus that are
affected or care about this.  This phenomenon could be part of a bigger
topic related to the tensions between our needs and the interests of
vendors.

Another nuance could be OCLC's move to IP authentication in NewFirstSearch
and how that will affect all of us.  We've relied on webscripting but this
won't serve us well with all the linking services and direct access to
content that OCLC wants to build into NFS that largely depends on IP
authentication.  Having someone from OCLC talk might be worthwhile since
they represent such a large package of content to be accessed.

  --Michele Newberry
    FCLA
    Gainesville, FL
    fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu

Ruth Dukelow - Michigan Library Consortium wrote:

> MLC is putting together a program for spring 2000 on remote patron
> authentication. Does anyone on this list have recommendations for good
> speakers on this topic?  I'm looking for vendor speakers, as well as
> librarians or statewide coordinators who have handled the remote access
> issue successfully.  I'm also interested in speakers who can address
> alternatives to remote authentication.  Thanks for your help! Ruth
>
> **************************************************************
> Ruth H. Dukelow, AccessMichigan Director
> Michigan Library Consortium             dukelow@mlc.lib.mi.us
> 6810 South Cedar St, Suite 8            phone: (800)530-9019 ext.21
> Lansing, MI 48911-6909                  fax: (517)694-9303
> http://accessmichigan.org               http://mel.org



--------------7B9AFC3BD7482C29442C3C51
Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: Card for Michele Newberry
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf"

begin:          vcard
fn:             Michele Newberry
n:              Newberry;Michele
org:            Florida Center for Library Automation
adr;dom:        2002 NW 13th St. Suite 320;;;Gainesville;FL;32609-3478;
email;internet: fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu
title:          Assistant Director for Library Services
tel;work:       352/392-9020
tel;fax:        352/392-9185
x-mozilla-cpt:  ;0
x-mozilla-html: FALSE
version:        2.1
end:            vcard


--------------7B9AFC3BD7482C29442C3C51--