Wishlist: online patron self registration for immediate access to online resources

[Lindsay Stratton]

We would like to have patrons self-register online, and receive some sort of account ID that will allow them to immediately access/checkout/download online resources - primarily ebooks.

We envision these accounts having online access only, without having to visit a library in person or necessarily receive a physical card. These patrons would, however, be required to get an official account with a physical card in order to check out physical materials.

Submitting some verification of identity - such as a photo ID - would probably be required, even for online-only accounts. We are looking at the New York Public Library as an example - they have a basic form to submit, which triggers an email confirmation that provides a temporary barcode and link to login to the account and set up a password. A physical card is mailed to the address supplied. To validate the card, the patron must send copies of their identification.

[Lindsay Stratton (lstratton)]

Also - Pioneer is interested in development partners for this

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

Hello, We (Lake Agassiz Regional Library) are also interested in this idea.

I'm curious about what kind of automated checks could be added to help alleviate the worry about fraudulent or mistaken registrations. I would like the ability to use commercial 3rd party services for information validation.

I wonder if geoip checks are accurate to a point where they could be used to only allow registrations to proceed if the patron is trying to access the registration from within your service area.

I also would like to see the option to use address verification services used to check USPS addresses for validity.

I'm also curious if work on this project would mesh with allowing automated account renewal options. It would be nice to offer customers the ability to renew their accounts remotely also.

Thanks

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

We are interested in the possibilities of this idea. One of our key considerations would be online identity and address verification (which should be possible through a third party, such as the parties who verify identities for credit card applications), and another consideration is the prevention of duplicate accounts. In a large consortium like ours, we already have significant issues with individuals finding ways to get duplicate accounts, so we'd need to be sure that this process prevented the problem from getting worse.

We are also interested in using this process to create full accounts (not just for online use), with locally-determined options of the library mailing physical cards to the patron or having the patron come in to a library to pick up a physical card if they want one.

If the development were *only* done for online accounts with no physical card, we'd probably need a way to control the account ID number patterns that are created for each member library because some third party e-resource vendors that use our server for authentication need to know the barcode pattern including specific prefixes in order to tell which library a patron is associated with.

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

I saw that Overdrive is using this vendor, Cognito, for their instant access/registration option.
https://cognitohq.com/identity-verification-service

It looks pretty slick, and might be worth exploring as an option. I haven't asked for quotes yet, but Overdrive charges <$1 per successful verification.

And this would just verify that they are who they say they are, it doesn't deal with geographical restrictions. In our case we need to know which county someone lives in, which can be tricky since zip codes can cross county boundaries, and the county reported by the USPS isn't always correct.

But the state of MN provides a way to get copies of their poll finder database, which allows us to precisely match an address to a county.

For patrons that own property in a service area, but don't live there, maybe just accepting a parcel number and county, in most of our counties it is easy to view property owner info with a parcel ID. Then staff could verify that info manually.

Josh

[Garry Collum (gcollum)]

Just brainstorming, but one possible way of handling this might be to create a pool of barcodes that can be served out as the patron signs up for a card using the existing self-registration feature. Once the pool gets low, Evergreen could inform the staff that more barcodes need to be added to the pool.

We are also interested in this feature.

[Remington Steed (rjs7)]

Here is a link to a related discussion on the mailing list:

https://georgialibraries.markmail.org/thread/vh3rb4vjipzvxv46

[Jordan Woodard (jwoodard)]

Definitely something our library, and possibly consortium, would be interested in. Like Terran the issue of duplication and patrons "gaming" the system is an issue we would like to avoid. Each library in our consortium is pretty autonomous and each offers varying levels of online services so account duplication is something we keep an eye out from.

Also the ability to toggle staff review before account creation would be nice for those libraries that like to keep a tighter grip on things.

Currently with patron self pre-registration we can set what fields are required so the issue is not the information we are getting but the verification of that information. For example, some people do not know their county, and in our case City, as the zip code covers several different municipalities.

[Jeanette Lundgren (jlundgren)]

C/W MARS would be interested in this development as well.

We turned on the OverDrive Instant Digital Card (IDC) that uses Cognito.

Here is some feedback on that service:

1- libraries/consortia provide a list of all zipcodes in their service area
2- Cognito uses a mobile phone number to verify billing address zipcode is in the service area
3- Cognito only works with US mobile numbers
4- In OverDrive IDC Mobile numbers can be used once and are used as a barcode. Only works on library/consortia collection (does not allow access to Advantage or local econtent)
5- Mobile numbers billed to an address outside the service area will not validate
6- Sometimes Cognito is unable to verify billing address zipcode and validation fails

In OverDrive you are charged per successful lookup. They have waived the fee through June 30th.

From what we have seen so far, only about 30-35% of IDC signups are new patrons.
The majority already have a libary card that is valid.
Some have cards that have expired.
Some have cards that are blocked.

The nice thing about the Evergreen pending patron file is it allows library staff to review and verify patron information before creating a new registration.

Ideally we would like some sort of validation within Evergreen to check if the patron already exists and before paying to do a 3rd party authentication.

We also would want to add CAPTCHA (https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1821093) and perhaps IP validation to make sure request is coming from the country the library(ies) are located in.

[Elizabeth Davis (elidavis)]

PaILS is definitely interested in this functionality. Would it be possible to issue the applicant a temporary card number (from a pool like Gary suggested) and assign them an internet only permission group that expires say in a month. They would get an email outlining this and require them to visit the library to finalize their registration. When they visit or contact the library, you could merge if they already have an account and verify their address in your regular workflow.

[Jason Stephenson (jstephenson)]

For reference, there is work in progress code to integrate with Quipu available from bug 1902937. Some variation of this code is in use by PINES and CW MARS, though CW MARS is probably close to what is available in the working repository. CW MARS uses the code from that bug for exactly the purpose expressed here.