Leveraging Federated Authentication to Simplify Access: Understanding Changes in Access Mechanisms to Online Content

The COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly reshaping access to education and one of the areas impacted is access to electronic resources. While remote access has been a feature of our industry for decades, it was generally viewed as the exception. Now all of us have become remote users. This paper uses case studies to re-examine the remote access experiences of three libraries that navigated the shift to majority (or exclusive) remote access and how federated access has proven to save time and money for both small and large institutions alike. It also presents the genesis and ongoing evolution of the SeamlessAccess project, addresses privacy concerns related to accessing online content, and identifies potentially disruptive changes in browser technologies that are on the horizon