Matching people and information resources: authentication, authorisation and access management and experiences at Macquarie University, Sydney

New horizons are beginning to emerge in terms of matching people and information resources in a networked service environment. Librarians, publishers, subscription agents, database hosts and information service aggregators are now actively engaged in rethinking information landscapes, in harnessing Internet technologies, and in finding ways to link institutional legacy systems to the web technologies in a manner that will appear transparent to the user. There is, as yet, no coherent view of the new service models and this paper attempts to foreshadow a conceptual framework on which to build sustainable service models and technical infrastructure. In doing so, particular attention is paid to the key issues of authentication, authorisation and access management which are basic building blocks for the creation of a secure and efficient networked information service environment. The experiences gained at Macquarie University with projects such as LIDDAS and PRIDE have helped in the development of the ideas presented in this paper.