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<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">Thanks to Melissa for raising this whole thing, because I’m interested in it as well. UPEI’s list of pros and cons is especially helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">Having read through and hopefully correctly understood the list, I’m still left with the YMMV (your mileage may vary) attitude, though. Many of the pros of Open Athens
(I won’t use OA because that gets confused in my mind with Open Access) are really not necessarily and inherently cons for EZproxy. I don’t see the argument for Open Athens as being a slam dunk (apologies for the sports analogy).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">For instance:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody">Using EZPaarse or related tools (which aren’t that difficult to put in place) allows you to gain some more granular user insights, and to a significant
degree, the ability to gain those insights isn’t something special to Open Athens and instead may have more to do with your setup of EZproxy.<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody">Personally I am not persuaded that users will find it uniformly and inherently easier to authenticate via Open Athens when searching non-licensed
databases than existing approaches. I’ve used Open Athens in a different environment and didn’t feel like it was necessarily easy from a user perspective. Just an opinion only.<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody">Availability of Open Athens when the campus network is down is not compelling. Locally we already have a good workaround to this extremely rare event
that serve us just as well.<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody">The whole aspect of hosted vs. locally managed is also a YMMV thing. Honestly, I *<b>prefer</b>* the control and local access we have to our locally
installed EZproxy servers, it works very smoothly, it allows for immediate response and fixing, and our staff are well versed and trained in how to manage EZproxy config changes, and quite frankly, it’s not that hard to do for them. It’s not a huge burden
for us at all and in fact is a great boon. I completely understand that other libraries’ experiences may vary greatly here.<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">What is somewhat compelling in favor of Open Athens without doubt, as I see it, is the personalization features on publisher/content provider sites, and maybe one or
two other things. But not a whole lot else as I see it, and according to my own local abilities and setup.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">So what I’m saying here is not a passionate defense of EZproxy, nor a passionate attack against Open Athens, but rather suggesting that libraries continue to consider
their own setups, configurations, staffing expertise, user feedback, and services (and privacy considerations, as others have already pointed out) very carefully before plunking down the annual (?) subscription cost of Open Athens. Undoubtedly it’s a worthwhile
solution for many. But not for all. And btw, EZproxy has an annual subscription cost now, too, so it’s not like it’s free and Open Athens isn’t, but I’m willing to bet that one is way more expensive than the other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">Steve<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="color:black">Steve Oberg<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Assistant Professor and Group Leader for Resource Description and Digital Initiatives<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Buswell Library, Wheaton College (IL)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">+1 (630) 752-5852<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">President,
</span></span><a href="http://www.nasig.org/"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#0563C1">NASIG</span></span><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><img border="0" width="175" height="48" style="width:1.8229in;height:.5in" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01D3E6DE.25827070" alt="id:image001.png@01D3719D.A819E5B0"></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark:_MailOriginalBody"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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