Access -Reply

[Monica King]

Since someone brought up Louisiana, I thought I'd explain what's going
on in our state from my perspective. Our library purchases several
online databases through the Internet as part of a statewide consortium
of academic, public, and school libraries.  Both of the vendors we deal
with have set up systems to allow remote patron access. This feature was
very important to the academic community although public library patrons
are eager to use our products from home as well. 

At this point, none of the vendors seem to have a firm consistent plan
for us to follow to assure only our patrons access the product. 
Verification of our valid patrons is left up to the individual library
systems.  In Louisiana, each public, academic, and school library system
is issued an unique logon id which allows patrons to access these
databases remotely.  However, the method in which that logon id is
distributed to the patrons varies dramatically from library to library. 
For example, one of the academic
libraries has a pointer to the databases from their university's home
page.  If the patron selects the databases, they are prompted for their
university ID or barcode, this information is then sent to the
university's mainframe to be matched, if the barcode is valid, the user
is presented with the current logon ID.  The logon IDs are set to change
every month or so.  At LSU, the ids are distributed through a listserv.
Every library has a different method. 

Finally, none of the vendors that I spoke with at ALA seem to have a
consistent plan either for librarians to implement the validation
process although many are providing remote access. 

 

Monica King
Head of Reference
Ouachita Parish Public Library
Monroe, Louisiana
ou_lib1 at alpha.nlu.edu
(318) 327-1490