InCommon Library Services Working Group Minutes
July 11, 2008
*Attending*
Holly Eggleston, University of California-San Diego (chair)
Steven Carmody, Brown University
Adam Chandler, Cornell University
Declan Fleming, University of California-San Diego
Bill Jordan, University of Washington
Dave Kennedy, University of Maryland
R.L. "Bob" Morgan, University of Washington
Tod Olson, University of Chicago
Laura Wruble, University of Maryland
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)
*Action Items*
(AI) (Adam Chandler) will follow up with Todd Carpenter at NISO, concerning some type of joint effort to improve the user experience in searching for protected content and developing best practices for SPs.
(AI) (Steven Carmody) will research/compile whether JISC, or other federations, have guidelines on WAYF bypass (and other vendor best practices) that would be compatible with this group's interest in best practices.
(AI) (Holly Eggleston) has developed a template/outline for case studies, which she will send to the email list for feedback and comment.
(AI) (All working group members) are asked to review the case study outline and begin developing the information for their campuses.
(AI) (Steve Carmody) will send out, by the end of next week, a URL with a draft version of a public wiki page with some information sketched in.
*Carryover Action Items*
(AI) (Tom Barton/Dean Woodbeck) will work on writing up Chicago's transition plan/policies as they Shibbolize resources.
*Meeting updates*
Holly presented at the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) and at the American Library Association. The NASIG session was standing-room-only and seemed to clarify some of the technical issues for end-user librarians. All of the institutions in the ALA group have EZProxy and some have Shibboleth installed.
Bob Morgan provided a summary of the Federation Soup meeting that took place in Seattle in early June. There is growing interest in federations in the U.S. This includes InCommon, as well as targeted federations for states, university systems, community colleges and others. There was also representation from some of the European federations. The motivation was to get people talking about issues common to all federations, as well as beginning to overcome some of the perceived barriers to interfederation.
*Service Providers*
Steven Carmody discussed leveraging the work the UK has done, in terms of service providers. He has a list that was generated in which U.S. campuses identified vendors of interest and will compare that to the U.K. SP list. The intent is to discover overlap and encourage SPs to move the Shib login to their front page and provide support for opaque identifiers.
Adam Chandler mentioned a National Information Standards Organization (NISO) meeting he attended. One of the problem areas relates to Google searches and access to protected content. Users frequently begin research with search engines such as Google and then encounter a barrier when they try to access licensed content. Suggestions from the meeting include assessing the current state of IP-based authentication systems, the points of failure and make recommendations for satisfactory performance; as well as establishing recommended practices for publishers.
A recommendation for this group is to explore some sort of joint effort with NISO to promote improvements in user interfaces among vendors. (AI) (Adam Chandler) will follow up with Todd Carpenter at NISO, outlining this discussion and asking advice on appropriate next steps.
A related topic is the WAYF - if a vendor doesn't have a WAYF bypass for users, it is hard to argue that the process is transparent to the user. (AI) (Steven Carmody) will research/compile whether JISC, or other federations, have guidelines on WAYF bypass (and other vendor best practices).
*Outreach*
The Library Services group has had a presentation accepted for the fall EDUCAUSE meeting. There are also proposals pending for the fall Internet2 Member Meeting and the winter ALA meeting.
Developing a public wiki, as well as writing case studies, would provide support and reference materials for those attending the presentations. It is important to target these documents to non-technical librarians.
(AI) (Holly) has developed a template/outline for case studies, which she will send to the email list for feedback and comment. (AI) (All working group members) are asked to review this and begin developing the information for their campuses. The timeline is to have the individual campus information completed by mid-August and to have comparison, best practice and implementation information completed by late Aug/early Sept.
The JISC public email list provides a good resource for those interested in the discussions happening in the U.K. List users have recently been discussing use-cases and end-user scenarios. The working group discussed developing a forum to encourage similar public discussions in the U.S.
Steve has started working on wiki information that would be public (as opposed to the current wiki, which is restricted to the working group). (AI) By the end of next week, (Steve Carmody) will send out a URL with a draft version of a public wiki page with some information sketched in. Suggestions for information to include in the public wiki include implementation recommendations for both SPs and libraries (e.g. the use of Shib and EZProxy), as well as a blueprint to demonstrate how libraries can easily implement Shib and EZProxy with vendors.
Given the growing interest in best practices, and the continuing presentations, we will need to provide both high-level marketing-type information, as well as cookbooks for staff that will be responsible for implementation.
*Next call - Friday, July 25, 1:00 p.m. (EST)*