Shibboleth at LSE

LSE Library

Communicating with Users

The introduction of Shibboleth to the LSE Library's access of electronic resources has been gradual, with access to each resource tested carefully in a variety of situations before access to it via Shibboleth is offered in the main 'live' list of resources. The first handful of resources accessed in the new ways became live in April 2006. The Library is now using a combination of direct Shibboleth access and 'shibbolised' EZProxy to provide access to the majority of its e-resources. As more resources become available via the UK Access Management Federation, the proportion of LSE Library e-resources accessed via Shibboleth will continue to increase.

Initially, progress was communicated internally within the LSE Library in these ways:

• this website - particularly the table of electronic resources and their status (now archived). There were also FAQs;
• monthly reports via the Library Innovation listserver, which often referred to external dissemination of the issues;
• items in staff bulletins and similar communications;
• at meetings, either where Shibboleth is a direct issue, or in training or general meetings to disseminate progress.

A few students were involved in the early rounds of tests. However, generally speaking, as the Shibboleth technology should work invisibly in the background and largely do away with the need to remember additional usernames and passwords like the Athens pair, there is no need to stress the change to the new system to the Library's end users. Access to such e-resources will feature in the usual induction and library training - see below - but there is no need for special communication beyond this.

Indeed, as far as communicating to user groups is concerned, the main requirement prior to moving away from Athens access to combined Shibboleth/shibbolised EZProxy access was to edit away all references to Athens, and wean the user populations off the notion of a super-database called Athens to which you need to remember your password, especially off-campus. It was also decided to avoid mentioning Shibboleth, lest the notion be fostered that there is a new super-database of that name instead. All LSE documents, online and hardcopy, dealing with electronic library resources were examined for references to Athens to be thus edited.

The LSE Library Federated Access Management Working Group has devised a comprehensive dissemination strategy to deal with all issues concerning communicating the change to end users. The Library website also has a dedicated Password information page (which includes an FAQ section) that provides all the necessary information about accessing e-resources both on and off campus.

As far as the terminology used, the Library simply refers to access via Shibboleth and shibbolised EZProxy (which together give end users seamless access experience, without the need to additional passwords), as logging in with the user's 'LSE login':

'The majority of LSE electronic resources can be accessed off-campus using your LSE login (network username and password). Look for the 'institutional logon' or 'UK federation' option (LSE no longer uses the 'Athens logon' system).'

The Library has a well developed Information Services team, each one of whom is responsible for communicating information literacy to the academics and students to a particular department. They have been communicating the change to their departments in meetings, and their library inductions and other training accommodates the shift from Athens to Shibboleth.

Another channel of communication is with the service providers of the resources, i.e. the publishers, owners, vendors or aggregators of the content, the access to which is being managed. The purpose of this is to persuade them to Shibbolise their services, as not all publishers have realisesed the potential of the new tehnology yet. Many major publishers (e.g. Elsevier) have already implemented Shibboleth (see the UK federation live services page), while many others are in the process of joining .