CDL: (Responses) Password protected ejournals

   Original posting followed by responses:

Original post:

From:  Kathleen Sullivan <kathleen.sullivan_at_phxlib.org>

I would like to know how libraries are handling two kinds of 
e-journals:

  1).  Journals that are no longer available in print and have become
e-journals only and are password protected.

  2).  Subscriptions that offer the "free", but password protected,
access to e-journal formats of print journals to which they subscribe.

We have a number of patrons who want us to "give" them the password so
they can access the journal from their home computers (we don't do
this).

At this time we do not share with users any password that offers access
to a particular item because we are concerned about copyright
infringements.

We are wondering how we might offer in-house access- preferably without
a lot of staff intervention.

We are assuming that we could only offer it in those specific locations
that carry the print subscription and would need to limit access to one
person at a time. But perhaps even this assumption is wrong.

Any insight on how other libraries, and particularly public libraries,
are handling this will be most appreciated.

Kathleen Sullivan
Collection Development
Phoenix Public Library
1221 N. Central
Phoenix, Az. 85004
(602)262-7360


2 Responses:

#1

From:  Tom Izbicki <izbicki_at_jhu.edu>

We try to avoid password-protected e-resources.

Tom Izbicki
Johns Hopkins

=====================
#2

From: Mitch Turitz <turitz_at_sfsu.edu>

Kathleen,

   At San Francisco State University, we do not offer access to online 
journals that require a password.  We only allow access to e-journals 
that are available through IP checking (or are free without any 
password required).

   The reason is obvious, we subscribe to hundreds of electronic 
journals and we cannot maintain passwords for every title.  Even with 
the IP checking there is a huge amount of maintenance that has to be 
done.  We need to verify that students coming to our web site through 
non-sfsu accounts (such as DSL users or AOL accounts) are our 
students, so they have to go through a proxy page that 
"authenticates" them.

   At one point we discussed coming up with a macro script that would 
automatically insert the password and ID into the appropriate places 
for accessing the password-protected journal by making the user go 
through an authentication web page of our own design.  Again, this 
would require a huge amount of maintenance, and the slightest change 
by the publisher to their web page could cause the script not to 
function properly.

   So we decided that until the publishers come up with a better 
solution to the password/ID problem, we will only subscribe to IP 
authenticated journals.

   Even though our periodicals vendor offers to link us to the online 
version of the paper publications we subscribe to, a great many of 
the titles are not available through our vendors and must come 
through the publishers' web site.

   Additionally, some periodicals are available through multiple 
sources. One source that will tell you where periodicals are 
available is:

Jake: jointly administered knowledge environment
http://jake-db.org/

I hope that helps.

Mitch Turitz,
Serials Librarian,
San Francisco State University