"Metering" Database Access on the Web -Reply

[kay mary]

Dan Lester wrote:
> 
> I'm amazed that any database provider is controlling your
> access with logins and/or passwords these days.  They (and
> you) will find that they get passed around so quickly on the
> net that soon none of your folks will be able to get on, as all
> of them are being used by people in some other part of the
> world.  

On the contrary, unfortunately, I'm seeing a sudden proliferation of 
logins being used on web-based databases and therefore of the needs to 
somehow script these.  Individual electronic journals and newspapers are being 
distributed via password, for example consider NYTimes, Academe Today, and 
Science.  And there are other sorts of passworded and important library 
applications such as the web-based databases from Yankee and BNA.  Even 
index vendors are not all using IP-address authorization, consider 
Cambridge.  That is why I asked a week or so ago how people are handling 
access to these services.  I've yet to hear of any server-based 
solutions to this problem (I hope that is that correct term!).  Since 
libraries are a small part of the publisher's market in many cases I'm 
not sure there is an incentive to change the ways of distribution, so I 
think libraries need to be able to implement a solution at their end.

Thanks very much for all the useful information this morning, Dan.  I 
hope your fertile brain will proffer an answer to this problem!

Mary Kay
Humboldt State University Library     

> 
> I've discussed these issues with several vendors, and many
> or most have moved to ip filtering.  We can get access to an
> unlimited number of sessions on UMI's ABIInform, for
> example, as long as the sessions come from 132.178.*.*   
> 
> A much less enlightened vendor, and one I'm otherwise very
> happy with for CDROM databases, is Silver Platter.  They will
> switch our four licenses for, say, ERIC, to web for same
> price.  But....there's a gotcha that would keep me from ever
> doing so....even though more rapid updating would be nice, if
> potentially contradicted by slower access.  The gotcha is
> that they limit you to a purchased number of "simultaneous
> users", just as you meter yourself on CDROM databases. 
> No big deal you say?  The big deal is when you ask them
> HOW they do the metering with the nonpersistent http
> protocol.  They do the one logical thing:  they set cookies on
> the workstation on that ip number.   I don't mind cookies as
> such, but when the cookie doesn't expire for THIRTY
> MINUTES after the last hit on that database from that
> workstation.  With CDROM, of course, as soon as the
> database is exited by any means, the license is free.  With
> cookies you could have a bunch of education students come
> in, four of them do quick searches and leave, but have all of
> the licenses tied up, and unavailable to the next folks who
> walk in and try to use it for up to thirty minutes.  Try to
> explain THAT to a class of students who all come in and use
> the service/product.
> 
> We're finally going to be setting up a proxy server on campus
> so that our remote students (which includes campus
> students who want home access, as they buy their service
> from a local ISP, as the university has contracted that out)
> can log in with their student ID (SS) number and PIN number
> and get access to databases that are restricted to our ip
> numbers.  They aren't likely to share those with net buddies,
> as that also gives access to their campus accounts, grades,
> etc, etc.  o-)
> 
> cheers
> 
> dan
> 
> 
> Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
> Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA
> voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
> dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR    alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
> Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
> "How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas, 1979.
> 
>