Providing Walk-In Access to E-Resources at the University of Bath (UK)

The most recent issue of Ariadne features an article on Walk-in Access to e-Resources at the University of Bath:

"Licence restrictions imposed by publishers define and limit access rights and librarians have increasingly taken on the role of restricting access on behalf of the publisher, rather than granting access on behalf of their institution.  In other words, librarians and their institutions are no longer free to decide who may read this material as they no longer own it."

"This situation has been the subject of negotiation for some time, and it is fair to say that an accommodation has been reached in many cases through less restrictive licensing terms.  Some clearer definition of groups who can use e-journals has eased the situation for 'authorised users', such as those teaching students of an institution who are not directly employed by the institution itself, for example, through franchised courses.  However, there is still a group of potential users who do not have a relationship with an institution other than a wish to access the Library's holdings to further their research or their curiosity.  In the past, such access was at the discretion of the Librarian but with regard to e-journals it is now set out in publishers’ licences, usually under the terms of 'walk-in access' to these resources.  This in itself is a positive move and seemingly restores some access control to the Librarian.  In practice, however, it has not proved to be straightforward to implement."

In the article, Kate Robinson, Lizz Jennings and Laurence Lockton outline a low-cost solution to walk-in (visitor) access to licensed e-journals using a wiki as an electronic resources management system.