Remote Authentication

[Monica King]

Chris and all-
We have a very simple method to give patrons remote access to our 
web-based databases.  We subscribe to many online products in our 
library.  Several we receive as a result of our membership in the 
Louisiana Library Network consortium.  Some we purchase independently. 
Currently we have subscriptions to products by UMI, EBSCO, ABI, IAC, and 
others.  Each of the vendors has given us a remote login ID (or in some 
cases an ID and password) in order for non recognized IPs to get in to 
the databases.  The vendors requested that we do not publish these IDs 
openly on our website and that we verify that the IDs are only given out 
to our library's patrons. In order to do this, I set up a page on our 
library's website that has all the proper IDs and URLs to the databases. 
This page is only accessible if the patrons type in their library 
barcode number.  A cgi script checks the number and if it's correct they 
are allowed access to the protected page with all of the remote access 
information. It's crude and patrons have a few loops to jump through, 
but it's better than having no access. Plus I only have one page to keep 
updated which is important since the IDs can change monthly and we add 
and subtract databases all of the time. The reason this method works for 
us is that all of our library card numbers begin with the same set of 
digits.  Obviously this feature is different from other settings such as 
academic libraries where students and faculty often use their SSNs or 
some other set of numbers as their library ID. It would be possible 
however for a library to issue special ID numbers (that could all begin 
the same way) in order to set up a similar method for students who want 
remote access.

As I said before, this system is very elementary, but I am not a 
programmer and this was the best method I could think up given my 
limited technical background.  Hope this is helpful.


Monica King
Ouachita Parish Public Library
Monroe, Louisiana
(318) 327-1490 

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