InCommon Library Services

[Renee Shuey <>]

 wrote:
> I've seen these campuses post their issues to the list:
>
> UMD -- David Kennedy, Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 15:58:27 -0400
>
> Chicago -- Tod Olson, Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:43:58 -0500
>
> UCSD -- Declan Fleming, Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:39:32 -0700
>
> Did I miss any other postings?
No, but here is the one from Penn State.

The Penn State pilot team met a week ago to assess the hurdles/issues 
identified by Cliff and Peter and determine which of these were issues 
for our university as well as develop a project plan.

   * The major obstacle to use of Shib in Penn State Libraries is that
     it is not a comprehensive solution; only a small percentage of
     vendors of licensed resources are Shib-enabled (including
     Elsevier, JSTOR and Ebsco) while hundreds are not,  and the
     majority of these vendors continue to use IP filtering for access
     management. Thus, in addition to Shibboleth, University Libraries
     would need to support other authentication solutions for access to
     licensed resources. One issue that needs exploring is whether
     Shibboleth is therefore worth the implementation and support
     effort. In addition, we will be considering how vendors might be
     encouraged to become Shib-enabled and how research libraries might
     collectively work towards that goal through joint licensing
     agreements with consortia such as the CIC or through federations
     such as InCommon.
   * It is quite possible that this hurdle is not as large as the
     security requirements we are faced with today in the library
     community. 
   * A third issue for discussion is the adoption of Shibboleth to the
     smaller community colleges and universities.  This might be the
     largest barrier for adoption by the vendors as mentioned in the
     first bullet.


Looking forward to our call tomorrow!
Renee