InCommon Library Services

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

Please send corrections, additions, etc. to

InCommon Library Services Working Group
Draft Minutes
May 2, 2008
 
**Attending**
 
Holly Eggleston, University of California-San Diego (acting chair)
Steven Carmody, Brown University
Janis Mathewson, Penn State University
Tom Barton, University of Chicago
Bill Jordan, University of Washington
Ann West, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)
 
**Action Items**
 
[AI] {Dean Woodbeck} will add information to the wiki concerning existing resources with information about vendors. He will also do some work on the layout and presentation of the wiki.
 
**Carryover Action Items**
 
[AI] Holly Eggleston will contact Alan Darnell
 
 [AI] Tom Barton/Dean Woodbeck will work on writing up Chicago's transition plan/policies as they Shibbolize resources.
 
[AI] Steven Carmody will have these conversations with EBSCO: 1) making the Shib login as part of their main front door, and 2) support for the opaque identifier.
 
**Updates**
 
**Holly provided information from the UK federation (JISC) concerning their recommendation for using Shibboleth and EZProxy. This may be useful for outreach efforts, as well.
www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/access_management/federation/proxyservers.aspx
 
**Steve reported on discussions at the Internet2 Member Meeting that the UK federation membership now totals 350 institutions out of the 640 total in the UK, and membership is increasing at the rate of 2-5 per day.
 
**Wiki Update**
 
Holly has been working on the wiki and will add more information as her NASIG presentation comes together. She has done a quick mock-up on the public space to support the working group’s outreach function. Access to the wiki can be more restrictive as you progress down the hierarchy, so there will still be portions restricted to the working group. Please feel free to make comments on the content and the layout and to edit the wiki.
 
**Vendor Contact Information**
 
There was an extensive discussion about providing wiki users with the URLs for the Shib entry points on vendor websites. This could become complicated, because one vendor may have multiple Shib entry points, depending on the resource being accessed. There may also be other locations (such as the Shib wiki or the InCommon web site) where some of this information is available. In general, the working group felt that linking to information on such sites, as opposed to creating a list of vendors on the InC-Library wiki, would be preferable.
 
There was a discussion about outreach, in general, and a suggestion that the InCommon website provide more information about vendors. For example, rather than just list a name of a vendor, provide a summary of the services the vendor offers and contact information. Other federations also maintain lists of vendors and the InC-Library wiki could link to those sites.
 
Steve mentioned discussions within InCommon about enhancing the communications that occur when a new member joins. The email announcement might include, for example, more information about what the company does and the resources available. This information should also be captured on the web. It would also be helpful if InCommon would provide information about all vendors and, perhaps, organize a list sorted by the types of services the vendors provide. The goal is to have information organized and presented in a way that campus librarians can find a reasonable presentation of information to answer their questions and encourage their participation.
 
[AI] {Dean Woodbeck} will add information to the wiki concerning existing resources with information about vendors. The working group can then determine whether to collect and add additional content information about the vendors. Dean will also do some work on the layout and presentation of the wiki.
 
**Interfederation**
 
Steve reported on a growing number of institutions interested in state-based federations. This stems from collaborations among universities, community colleges and K-12 institutions. Since InCommon is limited to high education institutions and their partners, there is a need to be filled. A meeting, called “Federation Soup,” has been scheduled for June 2-4 in Seattle to open discussions about these efforts. The point is to figure out how to serve the needs of these groups without making it more difficult and time-consuming for vendors and existing federations.
 
**Round-robin Updates**
 
Penn State has a pilot underway with RefWorks and wants to get EBSCO up as a pilot. At this point, the university is undecided about whether to Shib-enable EZProxy.
 
University of California-San Diego has Shibbolized EZProxy and found it to be relatively easy. They were able to use some configuration files provided by UC-Santa Cruz. The next step is to initiate a pilot planned with a biological research group.
 
**Next call – Friday, May 16, 1:00 p.m. (EST)**