InC-Library Collaboration Minutes - October 30, 2009
*Attending*
Steven Carmody, Brown University (chair)
Tom Barton, University of Chicago
Andy Dale, OCLC
Lynn Garrison, Penn State University
Thomas Howell, Northwestern University
Andy Ingham, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Dave Kennedy, Duke University
RL Bob Morgan, University of Washington
Tim Mori, North Carolina State University
Kent Percival, University of Guelph
Mark Scheible, North Carolina State University
Ann West, Internet2
Foster Zhang, Johns Hopkins University
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)
*Vendor Subgroup*
Dave Kennedy reported on a fruitful series of calls and activities involving the vendor subgroup over the last month. The group met with Elsevier, OCLC and JSTOR to discuss best practices and vendor needs. The OCLC call, in particular, pointed out some challenges concerning entitlements and the need for standardization. Don and Andy Ingham have continued this conversation, specifically regarding how things are set up at UNC-Chapel Hill and ways to move forward. The calls with vendors have also pointed out the need for education and development of best practices for libraries and IdPs.
Dave is developing a webinar, tentatively scheduled for the last week in November, to reach a broader community with the best practices document. There is a December 15 deadline for feedback on the document, which is on the wiki.https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/inclibrary/Vendor+Subgroup
Dave and Ann reported on a proposed method for attracting more vendors into InCommon. Ann has the UK list of publishers in the library space and will compare that list to the list of InCommon members. The idea is to list the UK publishers on a wiki page and ask campuses to indicate which vendors they work with (or anticipate working with). Gathering such information will allow a coordinated approach to the publisher, once a critical mass of IdPs has gathered. The idea is to have a lead campus communicate with the vendor on behalf of all of the interested campuses. The vendor subgroup will work with Ann on refining that approach.
It was also suggested to develop a strategy for approaching smaller vendors, since the tactics/value proposition may be different. In addition, a number of smaller vendors contract with a company to deliver their materials online. One of those providers, Atypon, was an early adopter of Shib and serves about 30 societies.
Steve mentioned a contact with a consultant who is well-versed in the Shib SP component. This person set up Shib for the state of Pennsylvania's higher education loan authority.
There was also discussion concerning interacting with Refeds, a group of about 25 federations from around the world. Bob Morgan has provided refeds with information about the work of the vendor subgroup and there may be a benefit in bringing some of these federations together to discuss common interests in the library space.
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Use Case Subgroup
Thomas Howell provided a summary of this subgroup's activities over the last month. The group has settled on using very clear, normal language for the use case descriptions. These will be done in such a way that they could be presented to librarians and staff members, who would be able to understand the scenario. That language will then be augmented by UML-type flow diagrams and case studies that provide the advanced analysis and technical information. The group also believes that developing cookbooks would also be a valuable service.
The focus is on the Shib-enabled EZProxy use case, with language that evolved out of a "bedtime story" that Steve developed. The story is sort of a super-use-case, taking into account several permutations and presenting those in language that everyone can understand.
Andy Ingham has started a cookbook on the Shibboleth/EZProxy hybrid and will coordinate with Thomas on its development, to ensure there is no duplication of effort.
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Portal Integration
There was a discussion about how portal-type products fit into this discussion (Metalib and ExLibris both operate portals, for example). In general, it was felt that EZProxy simplifies a lot of the use cases in this area. These applications, in general, are aware of EZProxy and already know how to send outbound traffic through EZProxy.
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Next Steps
The subgroups will continue to meet over the next month, with the next full InC-Library meeting on Friday, December 4.
Vendor Subgroup Next Steps
- identify next group of vendors
- refine the strategy around a targeted vendor approach
- gather institutions together to push the vendor effort forward
Use Case Subgroup Next Steps
- identify 10-15 use cases and get them done - have three or four already
- develop UML-type diagrams for each of the use cases
- outline the cookbooks
- consider the format in which durable documentation will be generated
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Next Calls
The Vendor and Use Case subgroups will continue to meet, with the next meetings tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 6. The next full InC-Library meeting will be Friday, December 4.