Managing and authenticating non-institutional users in Alma: two experiences

The management of patron information within Alma is primarily reliant on two systems – the creation and updating of patron information by an external system such as student management or HR systems or internally within Alma itself. A recent survey of the Alma community indicated the majority of institutions utilize a mixture of these external and internal processes. In addition to providing access to affiliated staff and students more than 89% of institutions responded that they provided user accounts to non-affiliated users such as the general public, members of other academic institutions, alumni, etc. Providing authenticated access to library services for the latter group relies heavily on Alma for password management. This presentation will outline the processes in place at the University of Otago and at the University of Liège for managing and authenticating non-institutional users and the possible effect of Ex Libris' proposed changes to internal authentication.