2018 Charleston Library Conference

Many publishers and librarians continue to offer IP-based access to digital content because they perceive it to be the easiest way for students and researchers to get to what they need. But this insecure method of accessing resources gives patrons an inconsistent experience on and off-site and makes it more difficult for them to set up personalisation features such as saved searches, favourites and recommended content.

Federated access management offers one of the best ways to access subscribed digital content, but poorly designed publisher and library platforms continue to create barriers to successful access.

This session will:

* Describe some of the barriers patrons experience when discovering and accessing subscribed online content
* Address some of the trust-related questions access management federations get asked around what user data is passed to publishers, why it's needed and how user privacy is preserved
* Provide guidance from the RA21 initiative and highlight the work of InCommon and OpenAthens to improve user access
* Outline the quick wins librarians and publishers can implement now to increase user satisfaction and engagement with subscribed digital content
* In an open Q&A, answer questions from participants that are still using IP-based access and what their concerns might be around changing to a federated access management solution.

The objectives of this session are to:
1. Discuss the trust-relationship between publishers, libraries and their users and the challenges around access management federation services
2. Raise awareness of some of the issues around IP-based access and poorly designed platforms
3. Appraise participants of the recent work of InCommon and OpenAthens to alleviate some these pain points
4. Provide guidance on what librarians and publishers can do now to improve patrons' discovery and access to subscribed digital content based on recommendations from the RA21 initiative.