David Rothman has an interesting post about providing off campus access to library resources. Easy off campus access to library resources is kind of like the quest for the holy grail fro many hospital libraries. Most hospital libraries unlike academic medical centers are unable to provide off campus access to electronic resources through proxy servers. For example, at my institution doctors using the proxy server are able to get into the hospitals intranet to check lab values, the EMR, etc. However, the IT department has made it so that once those users are "in" the hospital system, they are not able to go "out" to an outside resource or web page. Despite the doctors having our IP range while they are at home, the IT department has made it so that they are blocked from external sites while using that IP range. From what I can tell this is not unique, many hospitals do this. Even my previous employer (a very very large hospital system) did not allow off campus access to resources using the proxy server.

So much like the knights of the round table (ala Monty Python) I have been chasing the ever elusive holy grail of off campus access. The best way I have been able to give off campus access to my users is to get off site usernames and passwords from my vendors and distribute them appropriately to my users. While technically this is a method for providing off campus access, I think it is a scatter shot and inefficient approach. The list of unique usernames and passwords for each resource can get quite huge. You have one username and password for Ovid, one for StatRef, one for MDConsult, not to mention all of the usernames and passwords for the electronic journals. Good God, printing off this list of these resources is almost akin to printing off James Joyce's Ulysses. Not only is the list long but as much as I desperately try to make it easy to read and user friendly, it is often confusing to patrons as to what resource belongs to what password. Part of that is the inbreeding of library vendors. My users don't always know that the American Journal of Clinical Oncology is a LWW title, only available on Ovid, and therefore must use the Ovid password. I try to make it easy for them, I put the username and password right next to the listed resource. However I often get calls resembling Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" comedy.

Enter Athens. First let me say that I do not have any financial interests in Athens, nor do they employ me. I am merely just a poor hospital librarian. For an extremely reasonable fee (1000 users=$1500, 1001-2000 users=$2750, 2001-5000=users $4000) Athens will make it so all of my users have access to my electronic resources off campus. Additionally, each users only has to remember their own username and password. They don't have to remember one for Ovid, another for StatRef, another for MDConsult, and so on. Their one username and password activates access to everything. The nice thing is that you can set user permissions as well. For example, You have medical students who leave in one year, you can set it so their account expires in one year. You have nursing students who have certain databases licensed only to them and not the rest of the hospital, you can set it so that only your nursing students can get access to those databases. Athens is just really starting to get its foot in the door here in the U.S. It has primarily used through out the U.K.

From what I understandMillenniumm users can provide off campus access to resources by using WAM (Web Access Management). I would be interested in hearing more about that. However do to costs or other factors there are many hospital libraries who do not have Innovative Interfaces so WAM is not an option for them.

I have applied for a trial account to use for my library and I am lookingforwardd to seeing how this might help me attain my goal of medical library world domination...oh no I mean off campus access to electronic resources.