InCommon Library Services

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

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InCommon Library Services Working Group
Draft Minutes
October 5, 2007
 
Steven Carmody, Brown University (chair)
Janis Mathewson, Penn State University
Dave Kennedy, University of Maryland
Gabe Lawrence, University of California-San Diego
Harold Colson, University of California-San Diego
Claire Miasomoto, University of California-San Diego
Holly Eggleston, University of California-San Diego
Ann West, Internet2                
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)
 
**Future Meetings/Presentations**
 
Through contact with Tod Olson, the ALA standards group has expressed an interest in the “Shibboleth and Library Resources” presentation for the organization’s midwinter meeting. Holly Eggleston will be at that meeting and volunteered to do the presentation, which she is also giving at the Internet2 Member Meeting.
 
Holly will also develop a list of meetings for which the presentation might be appropriate and send the list to Steven Carmody. Steven will also pursue the possibility of presenting at the ALA annual meeting in June.
 
**Shibboleth and Library Resources**
 
Holly referred the working group to a draft of the presentation on the wiki, then reviewed the slides looking for any additions or omissions.
 
The presentation opens with an overview of the working group’s work to date, as well as the problems solved by Shibboleth:
 
•          Remote access is painful
•          Too many passwords make chaos
•          Maintaining IP address ranges is time consuming and unreliable
 
The presentation will focus on a user scenario, particularly the walk-up user who may or may not have university credentials. The idea is to present the potential problems facing a user and a proof of concept for the University of Washington walk-up user solution. One slide includes a user flow chart. Holley asked specifically for feedback on this, including any ideas for visual improvements or other ways to present the information. 
 
The end of the presentation will introduce the next steps of the working group and invite comments.
 
A discussion of the slide deck brought several general comments:
 
·       Acknowledge that the audience may have uncertainties about the concept and reinforce that Shib will work in this use-case.
·       While Shib may not have high visibility with library applications, it is used elsewhere in universities and some have had Shib in production for a number of years. Besides solving library-specific problems, Shib can provide a link with IT practices elsewhere on campus.
 
·       In the user scenario, Holly mentioned she found that just Shibbolizing the proxy solved a number of problems, including initializing a persistent session and consistently providing proper authorization for resources that require a login for personalized functionality.
 
·       Shibbolizing the proxy also eliminates the need to maintain IP lists with vendors. It also allows for a persistent URL on such applications as course home pages. One URL will work regardless of the user’s location and it will be persistent over time.
 
The suggestion for the working group’s next steps include:
 
·       Becoming more active with the UK and European federations and piggybacking on their vendor recruitment efforts.
 
·       Coordinating with vendors who are in other federations and presenting the benefits of joining InCommon
 
·       Recruiting more U.S. institutions to join InCommon and consider Shibbolizing their library resources
 
·       Developing best practices
 
Finally, Holly asked for ideas on how an interested institution can become involved. Steven mentioned having some demonstration sites where people can see at least the first two or three steps they need to take to implement Shibboleth. He suggested showing the steps they would need to take to develop a test environment.
 
Another suggestion was to have such a site discuss Shibbolizing a proxy and/or involve sponsored partners in developing some type of demonstration web page.
 
**Next call – Friday, October 19, 1:00 p.m. (EDT)**