[KS] full-text services

[Frank Hoffmann]

The comments by Dennis are to the point!
I just checked three of the services I had mentioned before … and the 
published contract conditions are in every case very similar:

See the example for JSTOR, which offers full-text access to over 1,700 
academic journals 15,000 books, and also other primary sources.
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Q U O T E :
-------------
6.2  Access to the Platform shall be controlled by JSTOR through the 
use of IP addresses, Shibboleth, and/or, at JSTOR's sole discretion, 
passwords or other methods. Institutional Licensees shall be 
responsible for issuing and terminating passwords within its control, 
verifying the status of Authorized Users, providing lists of valid 
passwords or sets of IP addresses to JSTOR if applicable, and updating 
such lists on a regular basis.
-------------

This is pretty simple: JSTOR (or ProQuest, or others) will ask a 
subscribed institution for a set of IPs that they (the subscriber 
institution) use to access JSTOR's bibliographic DB servers; these IPs 
are then white-listed. The software that JSTOR or others provide, or 
any access module for such other such scripts (or simply the API 
commands), would then in addition communicate an institutional username 
and password … so the bibliography server controls access by 
institutional username, password, and IP (and/or by access key, which 
would be more secure). And the institution, say AKSE, would then 
control the access to its server (which runs this connection 
software--and that 'server' could be a simple hosting account at a 
dedicated IP) via username/password login control. As Dennis just 
mentioned, access for the "end user" would then be channelled using a 
VPN connection. That is the usual setup in such cases.

To summarize, how I see it--the issues are not a technical or 
logistical ones whatsoever but this is just about cost and legal 
aspects: (a) there is no technical problem implementing this; 
implementation is simple and costs are minimal (hosting account with a 
dedicated IP instead of a shared one, so we talk about a dollar a 
month), (b) someone would need to control access, regulate who has 
access and who not, (c) cost for subscriptions would be the main issue, 
therefore my suggestion to (d) inquire about a bundled set-up, to 
create some sort of AKSE (or other "international Korea researchers" 
etc.) "sub-account" at an institution that would be willing to work 
this out with AKSE (or another group). Those would then mostly be legal 
issues to be looked into, not so much technical ones. Let's not forget 
that there are also a lot of wonderful Korean full-text DBs that are 
secured as if they would contain the state's Silla crowns …. access 
only via 주민등록번호. I cannot speak for others, but I at least would 
be most delighted if such Korean research DBs would be wider open for 
international researchers and interested hoppy scholars: therefore my 
suggestion to check out if a Korean institution would be willing to 
cooperate on such a project. 
 
Best,
Frank


--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws