"Metering" Database Access on the Web

[JQ Johnson]

Access to databases is becoming an increasing problem for libraries.
Schemes promulgated by vendors include site licensing based on IP address
(all you can eat, but only if you come in through the right door),
simultaneous users (since http is usually stateless, that means a period of
time after access from a particular IP address), small sets of vendor-chosen
passwords, etc.  None of the existing schemes are particularly satisfactory.

At the last CoaIition for Networked Information meeting Clifford Lynch (now
Executive Director of CNI) proposed that the library community lead an
effort to develop a network-wide authentication system that would be
appropriate for regulating access to site licensed databases.  "There is an
urgency to discuss authentication because within the next several years many
institutions will have to make the decision as to whether publisher provided
access to scholarly journals will replace print journals in our libraries,"
claims Lynch.  "Campus-wide authentication systems are permanently
everyone's third priority project."

The initial idea is for a moderately secure (hence easy to implement
compared to REAL security) personal authentication, so that contracts could
be negotiated that specified unlimited site access based on authentication
rather than IP, or on some number of simultaneous users, where simultaneous
user was a personal username/password.  The idea would be a protocol by
which a site (say a university) could publish an authentication server that
the database vendor would query.

Some similar schemes already exist, e.g. Kerberos realms and the
micropayment systems that the credit card companies are evolving.

If you are interested in the development of such a scheme and have some
experience with networked authentication, you might want to contact Lynch to
find out whether there is an active development effort arising from the
meeting.


JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  E-mail: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       voice: 1-541-346-1746
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          fax: 1-541-346-3485