Colleagues, Hopefully many, most, or all of you have heard about RA21 / Seamless Access Project with the goal to create a universal user experience for end users being authorized to licensed content or subscription services through our institutional single sign-on (SSO). If you are unfamiliar, I encourage you to learn more at: https://seamlessaccess.org/ I do believe there are both benefits and challenges for our libraries in implementing Seamless Access and moving away from proxy / IP-based access.
One of the early and public critiques I personally had with RA21 / Seamless Access was the lack of opportunity and representation from libraries. Partially based on speaking up, I was invited to be on the Technical Steering Committee for the implementation phase of Seamless Access and the sub-committee for User Entity and Attributes. One of the critical issues of Seamless Access is how Services Providers (SPs) must work with Identity Providers (IdP) for release of required or optional requested identifiable user attributes. As you can imagine, this is a contentious issue and requires careful consideration. It is a high priority for me and my institutions to protect user data, and I believe many of your institutions agree. Thus I have created a brief survey to gather information to help represent the broadly library community beyond my own institution. I hope that you will complete this survey to help us make Seamless Access. Please note that you do not need to identify yourself or your institution in completing this survey. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hREhVdIBBDNHd_vJWEZft6aRh8auivpfRV5OLwh6qcU If you or a colleague at your institution will be attending CNI Spring 2020 in San Diego at the end of March, Lisa Hinchliffe and I will be facilitating a conversation about Seamless Access and user privacy focused on the context and point of view from libraries and higher education. I look forward to learning from you all! Cheers, Tim Tim McGeary Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology Duke University Libraries 919-660-5802 tim.mcge...@duke.edu Google/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary The Duke University Libraries value diversity of thought, perspective, experience, and background and are actively committed to a culture of inclusion and respect.