[Wactclc-alma] EzProxy alternative

[Guidry, Wade]

Ryer,

It looks to me like authentication is operational at Centralia, appeas to be operational for Canvas and Email:

Current Students / Logins (centralia.edu)<http://www.centralia.edu/resources/current.aspx>

So, seems like it would be available for EZProxy as well.

And I would be surprised if they don't have at least one server running locally or in AWS or Azure where they could install EZProxy.

OpenAthens requires campus authentication, and is a more complex solution than EZProxy.



You could look at whether the big 3 (ProQuest / Gale / Ebsco) still support barcodes for account authentication. You upload a set of IDs to the vendor, or specify a barcode pattern, and those IDs are used on the vendor side as per-user authentication. It's what a lot of public libraries do, or used to do. I'm guessing it's still a thing.

Another workaround would be to join the LIRN consortium (www.lirn.org<http://www.lirn.org>) for $1,000 / year, which gives you access to their custom proxy service (LIRNProxy | Library & Information Resources Network<https://www.lirn.net/products-and-services/lirn-services/lirn-proxy/>). Their hosted proxy service utilizes something called LTI, which Canvas supports. It would basically do proxy authentication against your Canvas service. Setting this up would involve cooperation from your technology organization.



Wade Guidry
Library Consortium Services Manager, WACTCLC
wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>
(509) 760-4474
http://www.wactclc.org<http://www.wactclc.org/>

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> On Behalf Of Ryer Banta
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2022 1:06 PM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] EzProxy alternative

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Hello colleagues,

I'm still working to restore EzProxy after our cyberattack. Our IT department won't be able to restore our own servers any time soon, and even cloud servers are off the table. They like the sound of OCLC-hosted EzProxy, which is expensive, but nice. But even that will takes months, so that's a bit frustrating. Even if we go with OCLC-hosted, our IT can't do anything with authentication until summer, so that is doubly tough to swallow.

Does anyone use Open Athens for remote authentication? Or do you know of any other options we should consider? If you use OCLC-hosted, I'd appreciate any thoughts on what you love or hate about it.

Thank you and happy Friday.

Ryer Banta
Information Literacy and Technology Librarian
Pronouns: he/him/his
Centralia College
360-623-8121
Ryer.Banta at centralia.edu<https://mail.centralia.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=fNEFFUiOcJn8XZD_VNaqVEixJx9QWtNlXDDsY0izFrXf1xAoVYvYCA..&URL=mailto%3aRyer.Banta%40centralia.edu>
Schedule an Appointment<https://centralia.libcal.com/appointments/ryer>
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