From: Robert Kelshian <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 3 May 2017 17:29:50 +0000

Hi All,

I've been following this discussion and just wanted to say that I
encourage folks to keep up with this initiative.  We will be
participating in some capacity as the pilots develop as I certainly
don't think it hurts to help develop alternatives that may enable
easier access to the resources we pay for.  I think the concerns
expressed are all very legitimate, but I think the purpose of the
pilots is to get libraries involved and invested so that these
alternatives can be developed with those concerns in mind and measures
can be put in place to alleviate those concerns - the product can only
improve if we are part of the process to make it better.

As someone pointed out earlier, Nettie's message
(http://listserv.crl.edu/wa.exe?A2=ind1704&L=LIBLICENSE-L&F=&S=&P=41110)
from a few days ago sums up very nicely what this initiative is really
about.  At my library, we did have issues with accounts being
compromised and abuse in terms of unauthorized access to resources
when we were solely using IP-based authentication.  So we added
Shibboleth as a front layer to that a couple of years ago and it's
worked wonders for us.  We are members of InCommon and, through that,
the process was very easy.  I see the pilots as an extension of being
able to provide greater security for our users, as well as for
vendor-provided content.  If we can provide direct login to resources
at their source, I see that as an added benefit rather than forcing
users through the library website as the point of origin for
navigation - I understand that not everyone agrees  with that as a
good idea.  That said, I think we provide users with so many points of
discovery now, allowing them to access resources through those access
points would likely promote usage of our resources which, again, I
think is a good thing.

Best,

Rob