InC-Lib-Vendor

[David Kennedy <>]

Andy, hope you had a nice break!

I can say a little about it, although
we are moving kind of slowly on this so nothing really to show.

The process was somewhat strained between
our e-resources folks and our systems folks regarding the management of
ezproxy.  I think it is fair to say that our systems folks have not
been very transparent about how ezproxy is set up, and maybe also that
the e-resources folks have not been involved or interested in how it works,
and communication probably could have been better between the two parties.

So, I had an idea to allow the e-resources
folks more ownership of ezproxy while also protecting the ezproxy app from
misconfiguration.  Basically a web app where the e-resources folks
could configure the databases that are configured in ezproxy.  The
web app will have a database backend, and from that database backend will
be generated the actual ezproxy configuration files and restart ezproxy.
 This is being done in django/mysql.  I did something similar
back at MD where we managed approx 40 ezproxy instances across the state
of MD.

Also, we are trying to figure out a
way to allow the e-resource staff some way to test ezproxy from off-campus.
 So, once they enter in a new configuration into the test instance
of ezproxy, they can click to test it from off-campus.

This is all really just an experiment,
so we will see how it goes...

Dave

-----
David Kennedy
Systems Programmer
Perkins Library, Duke University
(919) 613-6831

From:	Andy Ingham <>
To:	David Kennedy <>
Cc:	inc-lib-vendor <>
Date:	08/06/2009 02:52 PM
Subject:	Re: [InC-Lib-Vendor] eduPersonEntitlement and our campus IT group (ITS)

---

Dave, Foster, and others...

I'm now back in the office and working through my email from the past 
two weeks.

I've particularly appreciated the responses to the mail I sent to the 
list on 7/23 right before skipping town. :)

 From one of those, in fact, Dave, I've got the following request:

[Quoting Dave's message:]
"I also coupled the
> discussion with them [NB: those in Duke's library who manage licenses
and IP addresses] another idea I had to create a web interface for 
> them to manage ezproxy themselves and become the functional owners
of 
> the app, giving them better access to the process.  "


[My question:]

CAN YOU SAY A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THIS, SPECIFICALLY?





Thanks, everyone.  I have a meeting scheduled one week from today
to 
discuss the eduPersonEntitlement attribute with our central computing 
office (ITS).  Hopefully discussions with OUR e-resources licensing
folks within the library will be scheduled next week also.

Best,
Andy


Andy Ingham
Assistant Head, Library Systems
University Library
UNC-Chapel Hill
919-962-1288