[WEB4LIB] ejournals, authentication, and the OPAC

[Stephen Sloan]

> 
> We've been struggling with the question of how to show the public
> which journals we provide electronically, full-text. There are
> many single titles and even more titles that we get via
> EBSCOHost, SilverPlatter, and other aggregators.
> 
> After much discussion we are thinking that placing the records in
> our OPAC may be the best way to go, rather than creating a
> separate database that we could publish to the web. 

For various reasons, we went the database route.  I would recommend that
way because of the flexibility it gives you.  It is, for example, muuch
easier to download and integrate records from vendors into an SQL database
than it is to create MARC records in an OPAC (EBSCO provides MARC but
other vendors do not).

You may find the University of New Brunswick's system at:

http://flay.hil.unb.ca/EJournals/

In the background is a MySQL database and perl scripts.

I have written perl scripts to update records from new lists as well as
provide a Web interface.  I'd be happy to share them.

> 
> Also, what is your model for authenticating off-campus users when
> they look at a MARC record for an electronically-available
> journal in your OPAC and click on the link? 

Another way the databse proves valuable.  Clicking on a link for a journal
passes the user to a script.  If they are on campus, they are redirected
to the journal home page.  If not, they are presented with proxy server
instuctions (with a link to the journal home page).  Once the browser is
set up and they have authenticated themselves, they can just follow the
link to the journal.


What method do you
> use to determine that they are valid users?

At the University of New Brunswick, all faculty and students are issued an
ID and PIN.  Our proxy server is able to make use of this data.  I believe
the data is loaded into a MySQL database and an apache module is added to
check the authentication against the data.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions about this.  We just set up the
proxy service late last month.  So far, I think it has been working well
with the exception of some cases where Internet Explorer will not
authenticate properly.


Stephen Sloan
Systems Librarian
UNB Libraries
sloan at unb.ca
(506) 453-4814