Dianne Carty Presented with Award

Dianne Carty, Head of State Aid and Data Coordination at the MBCL, was presented with the Helen Eckard award, a plaque in recognition of the statistical portion of the agency's web site. The Eckard award is decided upon by the FSCS (Federal-State Cooperative System) steering committee and includes representatives from NCLIS (The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science), NCES (The National Center for Education Statistics), CENSUS, ALA and elected representatives from the State Data Coordinators. In accepting the award Ms. Carty emphasized that it was a group effort and the plaque is engraved to reflect this. After the luncheon award presentation, Ms. Carty demonstrated the features of the website in a concurrent session.

A full description of the Eckard Award can be found at: www.nclis.gov/statsurv/surveys/fscs/awardsFSCS/eckard.pdf.

Economic Value and Today's Public Library

In response to numerous requests from library directors and trustees, the MBLC has put the slides of a Power-Point presentation by Commissioner John Arnold on the topic of "Economic Value and Today's Public Library" on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioner's Website. Commissioner Arnold spoke recently on this topic at the New England Library Association's Annual Conference and Massachusetts Library Trustees Association/Massachusetts Friends of Libraries Annual Conference. Please go to www.mass.gov/mblc and click on Advisory Services for Libraries and then click on Trustees, Directors & Friends.

Maureen J. Killoran
Head of the Public Library Advisory Unit
Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Why do I keep getting prompted for a username or password when I log on to a magazine or newspaper database?

You should not be prompted for a username and password once you have typed in your Massachusetts library card number. This is an error, or it indicates a software conflict on your PC. These magazine and newspaper databases are licensed through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, Massachusetts Regional Library Systems, or Massachusetts Library Networks. Though they are not free resources, they have been made available freely to anyone with a valid library card from a Massachusetts library.

When you go to view a magazine or newspaper database from home, the database vendor must check to see that you have logged in with an authorized library card. In some cases, they use a technique called a "referring page", "referring URL" or "HTTP_REFERER" method of authentication. This piece of information, carried by your web browser, assures the database provider that you successfully came through the Board's login process.

Some of the new Internet security products that many users have installed on their PCs block the ability of the database provider from seeing referring URL information. The database provider thus does not know you came from our Web site, and that you have already been approved to see their product. Not knowing that you are approved, they ask you for a username and password. The two most popular families of security software that block referring URLs are the Norton Internet Security/Norton Personal Firewall products and Zone Alarm Pro. (The free Zone Alarm basic product does not block referring URLs).

In order to allow database vendor Web sites to see referring URLs, you must tell your security software that these are "trusted" Web sites. The Symantec notice provides instructions on how to establish trusted sites for the Norton family of software. For ZoneAlarm Pro, simply make sure that the privacy panel's cookie control custom button to 'Remove private header information' is NOT checked.

For more information on this question and other login questions please visit the "Remote Login Help" page on the MBCL web site at mblc.state.ma.us/books/magazine/help.php