Accessibility and Integrity of Networked Information Collections Page: 48
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primary clientele than to other outside users who wish to make occasional, casual use
of the library's information system through the network.
There are other reasons why online catalog designers are moving towards (at least
optionally) authenticated access as online catalogs become more sophisticated [Lynch,
1992]. This is needed for current awareness services that electronically mail notification
of the arrival of interesting new materials to users, for intelligent interfaces that track a
user's history with the system and his or her preferences, or that tailor the dialog to the
user's familiarity with the system based on how long and how often he or she uses it.
Again, it is certainly possible to support both authenticated and anonymous access
modes, and even to permit users to store preference files external to the library
information system, importing them when they start an anonymous session and
exporting them again at the close of the session, but all of these options add
considerable complexity to the system design, the cost of which is certainly subject to
question, particularly in the absence of any policy or community consensus that
underscores the importance of offering an anonymous access mode.
Matters are complicated by several conflicting sets of demands on service providers.
Indeed, this conflict goes beyond operational needs to a basic conflict of values
between the library community's tradition of free access to information and the
computer community's emphasis on tracking, auditibility and accountability. Computer
and network security practices stress the importance of audit trails and other monitoring
tools to protect systems from intruders, and system security and integrity are major
issues for any service provider on the Internet. In fact, there seems to be consensus
among many of the regional network service providers that anonymous access to the
Internet is unacceptable (for example, providing access to terminal servers that can
TELNET to any Internet host without first identifying the user at the terminal server so
that attempts to break into system can be tracked back to an individual at that
institution-but note here that there is no requirement that the information be
propagated outwards from the source terminal server, only that it be maintained so that
by cooperation among organizations a trail can be defined back to an account at the
first institution). Certainly, there are many systems that permit anonymous incoming
access, but in order to satisfy these restrictions they limit access going back out to the
network to specific, limited sets of hosts that have agreed to permit anonymous
incoming access. For applications where there is recharge for information access,
careful tracking of users is needed to allow discrimination among user groups. This
question of anonymous access to the network has sparked bitter arguments between
the library community and the networking community, as many libraries view
themselves as potential access points to the Internet, and at least some libraries have
taken the position that they should not have to require users to identify themselves in
order to access resources on the net that are willing to accept these incoming
connections. It seems likely that as "public-access" resources on the network multiply,
and particularly as federal, state49 and local government information becomes more
49 jCaliforniaAssemblyBil1i624 is currently under consideration, which, if adopted, would require that
various legislative information be made available at little or no cost to the general public through the
Internet. One serious proposal by some members of the legislative staff is that the identity of those
members of the public requesting this information be tracked for various reasons.48
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United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. Accessibility and Integrity of Networked Information Collections, report, August 1993; [Washington D.C.]. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39703/m1/54/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.