RE: WAM and Consortium

["Bill Topritzhofer" <btopritz@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Alice,

Wow, its so good to hear of someone doing all the same things that I've been
doing and more to get WAM to work in a multi-library system!!!

If you'd be willing I'd love to have you as a co-presenter Alice. Though it
seems that some of our headaches may go away when III introduces their
EZProxy product, I still think this program will be valuable in getting
people to think in different ways about solutions to their authentication
problems.

I haven't really thought much about the actual presentation itself at this
point, but there are still a couple months to get things together.

Thanks,

	-Bill

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Bill Topritzhofer, MLIS
Library Systems Manager
SWITCH Library Consortium
btopritz@xxxxxxxxxx
Ph. 414.351.2423
Fx. 414.228.4146
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^

-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Bertini, Alice
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 2:21 PM
To: 'innopac@xxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: WAM and Consortium


Hi Bill and John,

We're also in a consortium of 3 public libraries with a similar situation
described by Bill below. I've found some rather creative solutions including
URL forwarding from another server (Firstsearch), multiple entries in the
WAM table for the same database to authenticate first against the WAM
database and then against the vendor database (Grolier Online), and working
directly with the vendors to include IP range authentication as well as
providing us with unique URL's (Galenet and Infotrac). To the say the least,
it's not been easy or straight forward. One suggestion that would solve a
lot of problems would be to have the III server support virtual IP's
corresponding to each member library in the consortium. This would allow
remote vendors the option of IP address authentication and require only one
entry in the WAM table with multiple ptypes supported.

If you're still looking for a co-presenter at the IUG, Bill, I may be able
to help out - just let me know.

Alice Bertini
Boulder Public Library
Boulder, Colorado
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Topritzhofer [mailto:btopritz@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 7:14 AM
> To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: WAM and Consortium
>
>
> John,
>
> There are a host of issues and technicalities that can pop up
> in using WAM
> in a consortium. In my situation we have 7 institutions which
> use a variety
> of vendors and often subscribe to the same vendor, but
> purchase access to
> different products.
>
> The most important factor in setting up WAM to work in a consortial
> environment is the vendor that you are dealing with. Some
> (like IAC and
> EBSCO) make things relatively easy, but others (UMI
> primarily) make it very
> difficult.
>
> What you want to have is something UNIQUE in each URL that you are
> authenticating to so you can use the DB ID field to
> differentiate by patron
> type and therefore provide restricted access to the databases
> according to
> the license agreement.
>
> There are a number of other tips and tricks that can be used
> to get trickier
> databases to work correctly and for that reason I will be putting on a
> program at this year's IUG conference on WAM in consortium.
>
> If there are any public library WAM users out there in a consortium
> environment that have some ideas to offer I'd love to talk to
> you about
> co-presenting in this program.
>
> 	-Bill
>
> ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
> Bill Topritzhofer, MLIS
> Library Systems Manager
> SWITCH Library Consortium
> btopritz@xxxxxxxxxx
> Ph. 414.351.2423
> Fx. 414.228.4146
> ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of John Wynstra
> Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 2:22 PM
> To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: WAM and Consortium
>
>
> Is anyone successfully sharing the WAM in a consortial
> environment where
> individual consortium libraries have their own agreement with the same
> vendor. Many venders that I have encountered will not, understandably,
> register a proxy server (ip address) for more than one
> customer even if
> the proxy has the ability to determine which user is going to which
> license.
>
> Ideally, the WAM's NIC could have multiple ips and route the proxy
> requests through the correct ip based on the user
> authentication.   Thus
> a single WAM could be registered with a single vendor multiple times,
> each under a different ip address.
>
> Please let me know if anyone has a working solutions for this.
>
> --
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> John Wynstra
> Library Information Systems Specialist
> Rod Library
> University of Northern Iowa
> Cedar Falls, IA  50613
> wynstra@xxxxxxxxxx
> (319)273-3619
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
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