Single sign-on singalong
It’s supposed to be getting easier to use the ever growing number of online academic journals, libraries, databases, and other resources - isn’t it? Let’s see.
Today, I see that in his Open Access News, Peter Suber has blogged an interesting article, viz A checklist for evaluating open source digital library software, Online Information Review, 30, 4 (2006), pp. 360-379. I’d like to read this because it’s right up my street at the moment, and it behoves me to know the latest considered thinking on such matters.
Following the link leads me to the website of Emerald, a leading English language publisher of academic and professional literature in the fields of management, library services and engineering. This offers me several options: I can purchase the article (or journal?) for £13 + postage + VAT. Bollocks to that; I can request “my librarian” - whoever that might be - to get me a copy; I can login to (presumably) the Emerald system; or I can login as an “Athens User”.
Are you with me so far?
Well, I happen to know that Athens is something to do with University libraries, so I go to the website of the University of London Library, of which I happen to be a member. I scuttle round their journal-related pages trying to take it all in, but no searching or skimming leads me to the Online Information Reivew, and I eventually conclude that I’ve wasted enough time, and choose the “contact us” form instead. That was a couple of hours ago.
I’m also a member of Edinburgh University library - only newly enrolled, and not done any RTFM of their system guidance, but thought I’d take a look there. There’s a clear link there to Electronic Journals, and an entry for Online Information Review is not hard to find.
Only, this time, I find a link to Swetswise, and again I’m presented with login options that don’t mean much to me. I half-heartedly try my Edinburgh login in various fields, without success. Can I login first to the Edinburgh Library website? I find a link at the bottom, then it asks me for a “Barcode” - is that anything to do with the Student ID that is my login for other Edinburgh University systems I’ve encountered so far? Who knows.
But, at least it reminds me I can for sure login to Edinburgh’s MyEd portal (which I’ve said nice things about elsewhere). Maybe, once logged in, I’ll have seamless access to the Library, and thence to Swetswise/Athens/Emerald, or whatever it is will get me to the journal and article I’m looking for. If not - I’ve really got other things to be doing.
Well, hooray for MyEd! The good news is that, once logged in, I’m quickly back at the Library, and follow a link to Library resources. This flashes a slightly ominous message, “We are contacting the University Authorisation service to check whether you are authorised to access Athens resources.”, but evidently I am, and I quickly find myself somewhere in Swetswise where I can actually see a list of all the editions of this journal.
The bad news is that, though previous editions of this journal are there, the latest, in which this article appears, isn’t. Maybe tomorrow?
So, on my travels I’ve been through half-a-dozen different websites - each time a different UI, different layout, different terminology, different shot-in-the-dark. Intuitive it ain’t, but I suppose the moral is: use the portal - login and stay logged in, and then you’ll hopefully be untroubled by having to know what an Athens login is, or whether you have to pay someone £15, or wait hours or days for a librarian to get back to you.
I know better now. But, after all this palaver, I can only endorse Peter Suber’s appeal to researchers to provide open access
to your articles about open access. Then it might just have been one click away from the page where Peter blogged it.
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