Lee Library Information Systems Task List

Description: CES-wide authentication system
Projects: BYU-Hawaii, CES, CES-wide Authentication, Shibboleth
Priority: 50 Task ID: 51
Long Description: We need a way to authenticate the students, faculty, and employees of all CES schools and the libraries of the COB. Ideally, this will be a system maintained by each of the schools so that Provo does not maintain lists of users from other schools.
Status: Open
Owner: Price, Ryan Contributors: Lacanienta, Ranny
Due: TBD Opened: 3/14/2002
Changed: 9/9/2004  
12/15/2003 We need to look at some open source solutions such as PubCookie http://pubcookie.org/ and Shibboleth http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/. Shibboleth is a lot more overhead, but may in the end be a better solution. LIS will meet on January 6 to discuss this.
3/16/2004 We have been contacted by BYU-Hawaii to set up access to their LDAP server. Ryan is working on this.
6/3/2004 Bill Holman announced recently that there will be a single CES-wide authentication through LDAP by September 2004. At that point we will convert to using that system instead of our own. The OIT managed system will support students at first and include employees later.
8/18/2004 The Nexus system is being rolled out this fall term. There is a meeting for the CSRs on 8/19/04. We will determine how this affects our existing systems.
9/9/2004 Bill Lund writes: "Ultimately, Nexus will provide a means for any of us to create applications that can authenticate users from any of the CES schools. However, at this point it time it does not appear that it will meet our needs. Consequently, I am not recommending any changes to our current CES-wide authentication systems.

Although Nexus will accommodate directory entries, including IDs and passwords for the four CES schools, currently, the only IDs populated into the system will be those of BYU-Provo and BYU-Idaho. At this point neither BYU-Hawaii nor LDS-BC are populating the directory system. Additionally, the only information that is being pushed down from the central directory to the LDAP server at BYU-Provo is the information for BYU-Provo. Lastly, we were told that there was no current means to differentiate between IDs of Provo and Idaho in the directory.

In order for the system to be useful to us, it will need to push all CES information into the LDAP directories at each school, including information on the individual's affiliation. Once that happens, we can dismantle the CES-wide authentication system put in place by the Lee Library and convert to Nexus. I don't have a time frame for when that will be possible, but we will keep our ears open for new updates.

It should also be noted that at this point the CES Seminaries and Institutes have not chosen to join Nexus and it will not include the libraries of the Church in Salt Lake. We would need to continue our own authentication systems to cover the Church libraries."

Description: BYU-Hawaii Secure LDAP
Projects: BYU-Hawaii, CES, CES-wide Authentication
Priority: 99 Task ID: 100
Long Description: Implement a secure LDAP system to query their database for user IDs and passwords.
Status: Open
Owner: Price, Ryan Contributors: Lacanienta, Ranny
Due: Phase 1 Opened: 3/18/2002
Changed: 9/9/2004  
12/10/2002 No word from Hawaii on their LDAP server.
2/6/2003 I've asked Ryan to contact people in Hawaii regarding this. The last word we had was that they were working on what the IDs would look like and how they would be implemented. In the mean time, we are using the library's 14 digit IDs and PINs for authentication. The information is downloaded to our LDAP server. This item will remain on hold until we get word from BYU-Hawaii regarding their secure LDAP.
3/2/2004 We've been contacted by OIT at BYU-Hawaii regarding their LDAP server. Ryan has successfully tested access from CESdb to their test LDAP server. He will be working with the BYU-Hawaii's library and OIT staff to convert CESdb to their LDAP server.
8/18/2004 This may be obsoleted by Nexus.
9/9/2004 This is not obsoleted by Nexus. We still need LDAP access to BYU-Hawaii's directories.
Description: How do we access content in LOCKSS?
Projects: LOCKSS
Priority: 99 Task ID: 363
Long Description: Now that LOCKSS is implemented here, how do we access the content?
Status: Open
Owner: Laycock, Grant Contributors: Price, Ryan
Due: TBD Opened: 2/6/2003
Changed: 9/29/2004  
2/28/2003 Just had a conversation with Vicky Reich from Stanford. At this time they do not want us to access journals through LOCKSS. The goal of the beta is for Stanford to have a large enough collection of sites to experiment. In six months from now they will want to do three things: 1) allow access through LOCKSS to the journals; 2) select additional journals to add to the system (such as "high risk" esoteric journals); and 3) spread the knowledge to other institutions. Apparently the U has approached them about storing early newspapers. Moving this to "hold" until that time.
8/14/2003 There is a recent email on how to access content in LOCKSS.
Description: Create URL to point at guest logon creation
Projects: HBLL/OIT Labs
Priority: 99 Task ID: 815
Long Description: Create a URL such as http://guest.lib.byu.edu to point at https://pcreserve.lib.byu.edu so that it is easy to create a guest logon.
Status: Open
Owner: Mecham, Jonathan Contributors: Price, Ryan
Due: TBD Opened: 8/31/2004
Changed: 8/31/2004  
Description: Googlisibility of the Digital Collections
Projects: Digital Library
Priority: 99 Task ID: 866
Long Description: Randy is concerned about Google not finding our digital collections.
Status: Open
Owner: Lund, Bill Contributors: Eldredge, Scott
Finlay, John
Jenson, Jacob
Price, Ryan
Due: TBD Opened: 12/16/2004
Changed: 1/29/2005  
12/16/2004 Things to consider:
  • What type of metadata will Google use to index our site?
  • Google Hacks says that if you get into DMOZ that you have a better chance of being indexed. Should we be getting individual collections into DMOZ?
  • How much and how deep is Google searching in our web space?
  • We should call the U to see what they are doing.
  • Are there ways to direct Google to what we want them to see?
1/6/2005 Actions from the meeting and from discussions with Randy and Julene:
  • Julene and Bill will talk to Dick Hacken about getting library links on his pages.
  • Scott Eldredge will add metadata to the collection pages and in the alt tags for images to describe the collections.
  • Scott Eldredge will submit our collection webpages to DMOZ for indexing.

Another thing that we can do is make sure that the titles of our collection pages match the content. Many search engines use this as a major factor in indexing the site.

1/29/2005 Instructions to enable a full-text collection to be searched by Google can be found at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/googlecrawling.htm.
Description: Test Handle Server pointing at CONTENTdm compound document
Projects: Digital Library
Priority: 99 Task ID: 695
Long Description: Set up the handle server to point at a CONTENTdm compound document. Then see how well the URL works from Unicorn and other places. Once we have this done, I'd like to discuss with Scott Eldredge and others the possibility of using the Handle server for all digital archive objects, making it easier to move them later.
Status: Hold
Owner: Price, Ryan Contributors: Jenson, Jacob
Due: TBD Opened: 2/12/2004
Changed: 4/20/2004  
2/12/2004 Assigned to Ryan and Jacob. I mentioned this to Scott Eldredge and Kayla Wille.
3/16/2004 We had hoped to use the Handle server included with DSpace, but it has been modified to only function with DSpace. I told Ryan to hold off implementing a new Handle Server until we decide where to go with this.
Description: DSpace usage statistics
Projects: DSpace
Priority: 99 Task ID: 820
Long Description: Dr. Beard writes: "is there anyway to keep track of how many times each publication is accessed?"
Status: Hold
Owner: Lund, Bill Contributors: Price, Ryan
Due: TBD Opened: 9/10/2004
Changed: 3/2/2005  
11/29/2004 This issue was also one of the issues brought up at ASIS&T, showing the number of hits on the system and publicizing the top articles. John Finlay reported that there was no mechanism for this in DSpace, but Ryan Price said that the web server itself cold provide this information. This is similar to what we do with the usage page on ETD. This also brings up the question about where would be place this?
11/30/2004 Ryan is looking at the Handle server, which can track usage. It may also be possible to use Webilizer to display the output. There is an inconsistency between what Handle server outputs and what Webilizer wants. We should ask Jacob how he did the ETD usage stats.
1/3/2005 Ryan reports that there is difficulty with the handle server and the statistics that it should be collecting.
3/2/2005 I'm moving this to hold until I hear tht this is a big problem to someone. If I don't hear anything by June 1 I will close this.

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