"Metering" Database Access on the Web

[Robert Terry]

Hi,

The scenario we are using in the software repository interoperation 
allows users to browse metadata seamlessly between libraries with MOUs in 
place.  Then when found, a holding can be downloaded after another 
authentication at a remote site is made.  A user has to be on that site's 
list as well as their own.  Sharing of Usernames/Passwords are being done 
mostly by the administrators (Librarians) of the sites.  In any one 
session a User will only have to login once to any singular site for 
download privs.  This has pleased  each site, since they get realtime 
control over their assets and number/names of downloads.  In some cases 
there is the issue of a limit to the number of downloads allowed for a 
particular asset, this system makes that a site by site control.  Well, 
just food for thought on this issue, hope it helps.

Bob Terry
http://rbse.mountain.net/MOREplus/



On Thu, 29 May 1997, JQ Johnson wrote:

> 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
> 
>