patron authentication

[gbarkovi at sfu.ca]

Colleagues:

As many of you have already done, we are seeking to set up some sort of user authentication function on our webiste to limit access to an online database. Our web server is not housed locally so I don't believe we would be able to (easily) check a patron table in our database via ODBC. In a year or so we will be upgrading our system and at that time we will be able to access an actual list of patrons.

For now, however, we were wondering about a pseudo authentication which would give the impression of checking a patron number. I have seen such things in operation where the correct number of digits must be entered, and must begin with the correct 2 or more digits, but beyond that individual numbers are not verified. Does anyone have an idea how to write a script that could do this? Or any other suggestion for limiting access to a subscription database without actually checking a patron table?

Thanks for any info.

Greg Barkovich/Librarian/Burnaby Public library
Phone: (604) 436-5401  Fax:(604) 436-9087 
6100 Willingdon Ave. 
Burnaby,B.C. V5H 4N5 
gbarkovi at sfu.ca / "You cannot kill time without injuring eternity" Thoreau