UKeiG Conference 17th June 2009 (Day 2)

The following is a powerpoint presentation report on the second day of the UKeiG Conference 2009.

UKeiG Conference 2009

Electronic Resources Delivery update 26.06.09

1. The UK Access Management Federation
Information regarding access to electronic resources continues to be amended to reflect the implementation of authentication through membership of the UK Access Management Federation rather than via Athens accounts. Various sections of the Electronic Resources web pages have been amended as well as access information provided through EBSCO Electronic Journals A to Z and FindIt. Staff and students have been e-mailed to remind them about the change and news items have been posted in Library News, Electronic Resources News and on InfoShare. Links to services continue to be changed as suppliers join the Federation and implement Shibboleth authentication. Other services hope to be able to provide access in the near future. Access to some services, which it seems are unlikely to have adopted the new system in time, is now enabled through EZproxy.    

 2. Enquiries
Electronic resources enquiries dealt with since the last report (13th May to 24^th June): 364

 3. Changes to resources

     Ovid / SilverPlatter
We have had access to a number of services through the SilverPlatter interface which is scheduled to be withdrawn.
–  ATLA Religion Index and ATLAS and Humanities Index – now accessed through the OvidSP interface.
–  RPS e_PIC Database – will become unavailable.
–  Social Science Index Database – future access uncertain.

     Journal Citation Reports
JCR data for 2008 is now available.

     KnowUK
The subscription is not being renewed.

 4. Stand-alone databases
Following the problems with the thin client server some databases have been made available as stand-alone services on the walk-in machines.

Electronic Resources Delivery (NK) 14/05/2009

1. Relocation from Blue 1.4 to Red B.13: Despite a shortage of electrical and network points and the need to abandon some furniture to store, we have now relocated to Red B.13, the ‘Recording Studio’. The limited space available made it necessary to sort and, where possible, dispose of files and other material which had accumulated in Blue 1.4 over the years. Hopefully we will be able to move back at the end of the year.

2. Staffing: Olivia has now returned to work and will be working on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the first six months.

3. The UK Access Management Federation: Problems with Shibboleth authentication for the following services which were reported in the last update have now been resolved:

Proquest

•  ABI Inform Dissertations and Theses
• ProQuest Asian Business and Reference
• The Guardian (1821 – 2003) and The Observer (1791 – 2003)

StatRef

We are testing Shibboleth authentication with Brill and Academic Library.

4. Enquiries: Electronic resources enquiries dealt with since last report (28th March to 12th May): 379

5. Changes to resources: Electronic resources lists, links and descriptions continue to be amended to reflect current subscriptions.

Music databases: The following databases are now available only through EBSCO:

• RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
• RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals
• RISM Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600
• Index to Printed Music

PIRA: We now subscribe to PIRA through CSA rather than Dialog.

Electronic Resources 01.04.09

Staffing

Olivia will be returning from maternity leave on 16th April and, for the first six months, will be working on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Siobhan, who has provided maternity cover during Olivia’s absence, finishes on April 15th. Despite being unable to receive any training from Olivia, Siobhan has done an excellent job in electronic resources delivery – quickly becoming familiar with a number of different systems and providing users with effective support by telephone, e-mail and in person. Recently she has spent much of her time updating SFX.

From the 1st April I am no longer the Faculty Librarian for Life Sciences. I have had a preliminary meeting with Helen McEvoy, the new Faculty Team Manager for the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and the Faculty of Life Sciences, to discuss the hand-over of my responsibilities.

The UK Access Management Federation

The change from Athens to Shibboleth is ongoing. Last summer a lot of time was spent creating, testing and putting in place links which would allow us to use University central usernames and passwords to access Athens authenticated services through the gateway system. This was so that new students did not have to be routinely issued with Athens accounts which would cease to work later in their courses.

More services have joined the UK Access Management Federation and it is hoped that it will not be necessary to continue to subscribe to Athens in the future. To this end links using Shibboleth have been created, tested and implemented on our database and e-journal pages. This has necessitated many changes to database and e-book pages on the CMS and to electronic journal access information. We are working with a number of services providers (including Proquest, Cambridge University Press, LNB, StatRef and Info4Education) to resolve problems with Shibboleth authentication.

Pete Birkinshaw of IT Services is creating a proxy service which can be used to provide remote access to services which have not yet implemented Shibboleth.

Enquiries

Electronic resources enquiries dealt with by Siobhan and Nigel:

January 435

February 375

March (to Friday 27th) 284

Changes to resources

Electronic resources lists, links and descriptions continue to be amended to reflect current subscriptions. Recent and forthcoming changes include the following.

Changes to journal packages

Anthrosource, Bepress, Institute of Physics, Oxford University Press, Persee, ScienceDirect and SwetsWise

Online only titles

Serials have forwarded a list of about fifty (mainly foreign language) journal titles which are no longer provided in print. All the titles need to be checked against the AtoZ list of e-journals. If they are not listed it will be necessary to identify the publisher and see if access has been enabled and, if so, to which volumes / time period. If we do not have access we will need to contact Harrassowitz to ask that they contact the publisher to enable access or provide the necessary details to allow us to do so. The supplier database, SFX and the catalogue will need to be updated accordingly and it will be necessary to investigate methods of providing off-campus access.

Music databases

In the past we have had access to the following music databases through the Biblioline service provided by NISC. In future we will have access to these databases through EBSCO. We have had dual access until the 4th April. One advantage is that we will now have off-campus access via Shibboleth authentication. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals RISM Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600 Index to Printed Music

PIRA

We are hoping to subscribe to PIRA (Paper, Printing and Packaging Database) through CSA rather than Dialog. This would have a number of advantages including IP access on campus, remote access using Shibboleth and the provision of access for more than two simultaneous users.

Ovid

More databases have moved from the SilverPlatter platform to OvidSP. The following databases are still available on SilverPlatter:

RPS e-PIC (Electronic Pharmacy Information Coverage). This database will not be updated after the end of March but should remain available until the SilverPlatter platform is finally withdrawn in June.

Humanties Index. This database is now available on OvidSP and should have been removed from SilverPlatter.

ATLA Religion + ATLAS Database and Social Science Index Database. The future of these services is as yet unknown.

Electronic Resources Delivery 05.03.09

Replacement of Athens accounts by the use of University central usernames and passwords

We are still working towards implementing the use of University usernames and passwords, rather than Athens accounts, for off-campus access to electronic resources. Links are being modified as publishers and service providers join the UK Access Management Federation and implement Shibboleth. The use of EZProxy for other services will be investigated with Pete Birkinshaw, Senior Directory and Registration Administrator in IT Services.

Usage statistics

Siobhan has continued to update the electronic resources usage statistics on the S drive to assist Faculty Librarians and Academic Liaison Librarians in identifying services which might be candidates for cancellation.

Electronic resources

Electronic resources lists, links and descriptions continue to be amended to reflect current subscriptions.

Electronic Resources Delivery 27.01.09

Replacement of Athens accounts by the use of University central usernames and passwords

Service links and access information continue to be modified as changes are made by publishers and service providers.  It is intended to remind all staff and students about the change from Athens authentication to the use of University central usernames and passwords.

Off-campus access

Two of the walk-in machines on Blue Ground (B51 and B2) and the computer at the Information Desk nearest to Reception have been set up so that they can be used to demonstrate off-campus access. An announcement about this has been posted on the Information Desk blog.

E-resources usage statistics

Usage statistics on the S drive continue to be updated. Statistics have been provided to Faculty Librarians and Academic Liaison Librarians when requested.

SCONUL statistics

Estimated statistics relating to e-resources and their usage were provided before Christmas for inclusion in the SCONUL return.

E-journals

Changes continue to be made to the e-journals lists reflecting changes in subscriptions for 2009.

Electronic Resources Delivery

Replacement of Athens accounts by the use of central usernames and passwords

Service links and access information continue to be modified as changes are made by publishers and service providers. Some guides to accessing e-resources off-campus using central usernames and passwords have been added to the e-resources pages.

E-resources usage statistics

Usage statistics have been added to the S drive (eres_statistics) to help Faculty and Academic Liaison Librarians identify services which might be candidates for cancellation.

SCONUL statistics

Usage statistics are being prepared for the annual SCONUL return.

IT Research & Development Report 26/10/08

SciFinder

There have been important developments in the provision of the Web version of SciFinder. A Chemical Abstracts Service Trainer who came to talk to the Postgraduate Chemists about SciFinder observed that CAS are to relaunch the Web version in the Autumn, and it should then compete more effectively with the client version. We have been asked to nominate about a dozen volunteers to trial the new version.

Wireless Network

The expanded wireless network, which added a further 21 wireless access points to the previous 1 access point on Blue 1, has now been live for about a month, and access is available in a much larger area of the library. There are now access points on Blue Ground, the Library Lounge, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 2, Purple Ground, and Muriel Stott, and a reasonable wireless signal is alsoavailable in adjacent areas, for example Blue 3, Green 3 and Purple 2.

Some wireless signal penetrates to almost all areas of the library (and outside the library!), and there may be places in other areas where a wireless connection can be maintained (even in unlikely places such as the basement).

During the Vacation, additional electric sockets were installed around the outer walls of Blue 1, which should add about further 50 laptop plug in points, and hopefully prevent the large numbers of trailing cables that we saw on Blue 1 last year.

Precinct Library Wireless Network

Wireless access points have been installed throughout the Precinct Library and provide good coverage everywhere in the Library.

Eddie Davies Library Screen installation

A 46″ LCD Screen (similar to those already in the Precinct Library) was installed on 8th October, and is available for use of their students.

Re-imaging of computers in 4th Floor Teaching Suite, Parkinson Room, User Education Room, and Green 2 Study Rooms

Normally, we would have re-imaged the computers in these rooms with the current year’s image – D08, but this is on hold until the problems with D08 have been resolved. Alison has put D08 on some of the new PCs for the Green 2 Study Rooms, and we have installed one in Room 1 for testing, but are waiting for the problems to be resolved before going further. (Added note – since it now seems likely to be some time before the problems with D08 are resolved, the Teaching Suite, User Ed & Parkinson will probably remain with the old image until after Christmas. The Study Room PCs will be converted back to the old image (or dual-booted with old image + D08), and installed in the rooms).

VPN

We have a lot of queries about VPN recently, mainly as a consequence of the recent “retirement” of the former “UMIST” proxy server, which served as an alternative to VPN for off-campus access to library resources. Mostly, we’ve got VPN working for people, but have one or two unresolved cases when VPN is being blocked by Internet Service Suppliers.

Electronic Resources Delivery

Replacement of Athens accounts by the use of central usernames and passwords

Since August we have received an e-mail whenever someone requests a new Athens account through the IT Account Manager.  We have now received about 280 such e-mails and the person making the request is asked to specify the service they believe requires authentication using an Athens account.  Everyone who requests a new Athens account is sent an e-mail about the change from the use of Athens accounts to the use of central usernames and passwords with links to further sources of information. We will be adding further information, including screen shots, to the electronic resources pages to help users to log in with their central usernames and passwords. 

New services 

Since August the availability of over 25 new services has been announced through Electronic Resources News. 

E-Resources Review Group 

The first meeting of this Group, which has been established to review the electronic resources to which the Library currently subscribes, was held on 14th October. The following staff are members of the group Sue Bate, Sandra Bracegirdle, Siobhan Burke, Helen Charles, Jenny Curtis and Nigel Kimber.

Athens Shibboleth news

For many years Athens has provided a reliable method of authentication to allow staff and students to access a range of our resources remotely. While publishers and service providers have had to pay to be able to offer subscribers Athens authentication, our use has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). However, JISC is no longer funding the Athens service and has instead launched the UK Access Management Federation, which universities and service providers have joined in order to implement federated access management using Shibboleth software. This is more secure and flexible and will allow staff and students of the University to access resources using their central usernames and passwords rather than an Athens account.

On campus most resources are accessed on the basis of IP address and so the change mainly affects remote access to Athens authenticated services. Although Athens accounts will continue to work for the time being, where possible we will be changing links to these services to enable users to log in using their central usernames and passwords.

There’s a powerpoint presentation about this change entitled ‘Shibboleth 2008’ on the Information Skills section of the intranet:
http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/intra/infoskills/index.html
Further information about the change will be put on the intranet and the library web pages and Nigel Kimber and Jenny Curtis will shortly be providing sessions to show library staff how authentication will work in future.

Sources of more information:

UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research http://www.ukfederation.org.uk/

JISC – UK federated access management
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/access_management/federation.aspx

JISC – Introduction to federated access management animation http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/access_management/federation/animation.aspx

Best wishes
Lorraine