From 1st August 2008, there will be a change in the way that users login to certain databases.
Which databases are affected?– British Library Archival Sound Recordings
– Digimap
– Film & Sound Online
– TRILT
More will follow during 2008/2009 (e.g. ESDS International, and Census Data, from 31st July 2009).What will happen?
- Instead of seeing an “Athens login” point, you will see a “UK Access Federation login” point, or be prompted to login by choosing your home organisation.
- After clicking on this, you will be presented with a drop-down menu of institutions.
- You will need to select “University of Surrey” from the drop-down list.
- After selecting the University of Surrey, and so long as you have the Athens cookie correctly loaded, you will see the usual Athens login screen (with a blue background, and orange writing), and after clicking on “Go to University of Surrey login page”, you will be presented with the University of Surrey branded Athens login screen.
- After this, you can login as normal, using your usual university computing account username/password (the one you use to login to university e-mail).
Why?
EDINA and MIMAS, the bodies that host the resources above, have decided to stop using Athens directly. Instead they are supporting a new authentication protocol, which works through an organisation called the “UK Access Management Federation”. However, the University of Surrey is continuing to use Athens, and has taken advantage of a facility that maps University of Surrey Athens logins into the UK Access Management Federation. Unfortunately, this does add an extra step into the login process, but at this stage there is nothing that can be done to streamline the new system any further.
