Library Services

EBSCO Partners with OpenAthens for Single Sign-On

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 10/23/14

EBSCO Information Services has expanded an existing partnership with Eduserv's OpenAthens to provide users with a single sign-on tool to log into an organization's content accounts.

"Combining OpenAthens with EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and Full-Text Finder (FTF) creates an access portal that can discover all library resources along with an authentication system that provides seamless access across virtually all content providers," according to a news release. "EDS and FTF can be configured to sense a user's authentication method and provide appropriate links to target sites."

OpenAthens provides management of user access to resources and supports both IP and username and password authentication.

The new agreement expands the partnership of the two companies beyond Australia and New Zealand and allows EBSCO to sell OpenAthens worldwide.

"We're really excited to be building on our partnership with EBSCO," said Stuart Pearce, executive director of OpenAthens, ina  prepared statement. "Over the past eight years we have developed a close working relationship with EBSCO in Australia and New Zealand and developed close integration between OpenAthens and EBSCO products. In recent times this relationship has spread to other parts of the world including Canada, Spain, Holland, India and South Africa. This has built the foundations for this new global agreement at a time when we believe we can deliver significant value to our mutual customers through increased efficiency and deliver a great user experience. Our customers will be able to take advantage of the complementary products, making access for their users simple and available anywhere."

More information about OpenAthens is available at eduserv.org.uk.