InCommon Library Services

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

InCommon Library Services Working Group
Draft Minutes
November 30, 2007
 
Steven Carmody, Brown University (chair)
Janis Mathewson, Penn State University
Becky Albitz, Penn State University
Renee Shuey, Penn State University
Dave Kennedy, University of Maryland
Laura Wruble, University of Maryland
Holly Eggleston, UC-San Diego
Ann West, EDUCAUSE/Internet2
Renee Frost, Internet2
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)
 
**Upcoming Presentations**
 
David Kennedy will present our work thus far at the upcoming CNI conference. Holly will present at the ALA mid-winter meeting. Holly’s presentation at the Internet2 Member Meeting is archived at http://events.internet2.edu/2007/fall-mm/netcast.cfm. Look for the session titled “Enabling Access to Applications with Shibboleth,” which was on Wednesday at 8:45 a.m.
 
The Power Point presentation Holly developed for the I2 Member Meeting is available on the wiki: https://spaces.internet2.edu/pages/viewpageattachments.action?pageId=5062
 
**Convincing Librarians**
 
Steven pointed out that librarians form the real audience for this working group, at this point. He asked two librarians at Brown to watch the video from the Internet2 meeting; they did not come away convinced that deploying Shib would be of value. Librarians don't see significant problems with the currently deployed solutions, and thus see no need to invest significant time in change. The challenge becomes demonstrating value for users and for those who administer library systems.
 
Becky Albitz from Penn State mentions three points that are important, from her perspective as a librarian:
 
1. What is the direct user benefit? One example is that users can have profiles maintained in vendor databases, used for personalized content.
 
2. How will this save librarians time? One example: it would reduce help tickets
 
3. How will this affect assist in tracking abuse of products?
 
In addition, libraries are working with a greater number of smaller publishers, many offering just one journal. This can create a large amount of work; demonstrating how Shib could make this easier would be a big selling point for librarians.
 
Another area to consider involves smaller schools, who may not have the personnel to do Shib implementations and may have a librarian entering IP ranges and not have a proxy server.
 
In his conversations with Brown librarians, Steven found that they spend a large amount of time dealing with user complaints and issues. His philosophy is to get the top 15 vendors Shib-enabled, which would probably eliminate 90 percent of the problems.
 
There was also a general discussion about microlicensing. Penn State’s philosophy is to provide as many resources as possible to as many people as possible. Penn State considers all licenses to be available to all PSU campuses. The concern is that microlicensing could create groups of “haves” and “have nots” within the university. Given that users like personalization of content, however, and that some content is restricted, Shib’s attribute controls would help as Penn State tries to manage these micro issues.
 
Becky mentioned that Shib is attractive, particularly for its SSO characteristics. For a university with an SSO already in place, however, the benefits have to be made more clear. In the example of attributes, for example, we need to convince librarians why attributes are important. The main points from this call seem to be:
 
1.      improving a user experience through personalization
2.      enhancing security by providing a greater ability to track use and abuse. Shib’s attributes and logs can create audit trails.
3.      eliminating the need to maintain IP address lists with an increasing number of smaller providers.
 
Shib’s logs would also allow librarians to track usage with each provider; this can get fairly specific, in terms of demographics of users.
 
Laura Wruble provided an example of how, in cases of systematic abuse, it appears to the vendor that the proxy server is the problem, because that is the IP address they see for everyone from an institution. So the vendor cuts off that IP, which is the proxy server, so everyone is cut off.
 
Dave Kennedy said the biggest value he sees in Shib is providing SSO across all of the university’s services. However, other SSO products are simpler to implement, so other Shib features become more important, such as the ability to personalize the user experience and managing the IP addresses locally, rather than having to do so with each vendor.
 
Holly suggested developing a list of attributes that the identity provider will furnish to a vendor, not the other way around. Vendors will almost always want more information than an institution is willing to give. So we need to define the standards we can agree to.
 
**European Collaboration**
 
Steven asked about interest in working with European librarians on how they work with vendors. In most cases, Europe’s federations are ahead of the U.S., in terms of basically requiring federating.  There was general agreement in finding out the discussions taking place in Europe, how institutions approach vendors, and the features that customers are interested in.
 
As a start, by January 1, Steven will approach his contacts in European federations to have this working group included in email lists.
 
**Next call – Friday, December 14, 1:00 p.m. (EST)**