[WEB4LIB] Re: Personalized Library Pages

[David Atkins]

On Fri, 28 May 1999, Thomas Dowling wrote:

> I'm curious if anyone developing a My Library page could comment on the
> decision to require users to log in to see their customized settings.  My
> gut instinct tells me that has just enough nuisance value that people may
> create a profile out of curiosity, but not actually log into it very
> often.  It seems like judicious use of persistent cookies could make user
> customizations appear automatically, and I've been working on a prototype
> that does that for the OhioLINK home page.
> 

Well, we're not yet developing MyLibrary pages but I do have comments...

Seems reasonable to accommodate both.  Having cookies set to launch a
personal webpage works great from an individual's personal computer but
might not work as well in public labs.

In our public spaces, PCs are set to accept cookies, given some of our
web subscriptions require some cookie access.  If a person logs into
MyYahoo & sets the machine "remember LogIn", then anyone will see the
previous individual's MyYahoo page by simply typing in the MyYahoo URL.
I'm assuming the same would be true for MyLibrary pages which set cookies
for an autolog-in.

If this is a problem, perhaps MyLibrary servers could recognize public lab
PCs and not set cookies, only offering logins?   Or some creative cookie
management on the public side (cringe)?

As for folks not wanting to use log-ins, if more personalized, patron
specific library services were available via MyLibrary pages (patron
empowerment via circulation, Document Delivery, etc.) and as these
services require log-in authentication, many wouldn't be too adverse to
the log-in steps.

If you want to have your cake & eat it, too, you need two cakes.  My take
is that I want persistent cookies for MyLibrary services on personal PCs
and I don't want them on the public PCs. 

DA
 
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David P. Atkins
Electronic Resources Librarian
John C. Hodges Library                            datkins at utk.edu
The University of Tennessee                    me  (423) 974-0014
Knoxville, Tennessee  37996                    fax (423) 974-9242
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