Hong Ma
Head of Library Systems
Loyola University Chicago
Margaret Heller
Digital Services Librarian
Loyola University Chicago
Academic libraries and their campus information technology partners share the common goal of providing secure and streamlined access to campus resources, but may have different aims, priorities, and obligations around the integration and implementation of technology. Strong relationships between these units can allow practical conversation and collaboration to happen, and libraries can create opportunities to bring library values and align library technology priorities into the campus technology deployment roadmap. In this presentation, we will start with our systematic strategies to position the library technology department as a leader of digital transformation and how we have become involved in a variety of campus technology initiatives. These strategies established a foundation and avenues for us to be able to holistically align library technology priorities with the campus technology plan. The recent project we will highlight is the implementation of OpenAthens as a federated authentication solution. Fitting into campus planning for Single Sign-On and Multi-Factor Authentication as part of a five-year campus digital experience plan, it also addressed a short term need to improve remote access due to the pandemic. The nature and timing of this project added a variety of challenge we will address such as navigating different federated solutions among different content/services providers, performing layers of configurations among library systems in a volatile time, and providing tailored ongoing education for our library staff and user community.