Monday, August 29, 2005

Entitlement Management Systems

I wasn't familiar with the phrase or the innards of Entitlement Management Systems (perhaps because I am so far removed from the day-to-day backroom operations of libraries) but as a way of bundling a lot of stuff together it's both a useful phrase and what appears to be helpful technology. Digital rights management would be only one part of the whole entitlement process, according to the article I am referring to, from Telephony Online.
Entitlement is the process of authorizing a service (a music or broadcast TV channel, pay per view, etc.) or content (a movie, program, game or special event) to a customer. Entitlement also includes the assignment of rights, which are the rules that govern how services and content can be used.
The article is written from the point of view of for-profit telcos but there's interesting tidbits to be gleaned if you read the article from the point of view of the task of providing disparate content to library patrons.

I found this is in Hot Bytes, a bi-weekly newsletter from the e-Content Institute.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting article but I'm not sure terribly relevant to the library world. The way the full text link read, it seemed to place an EMS squarely in the past tense - you could examine *past entitlements* based on *past history* in the scope of *preexisting* relationships with the customer. As in: you could decide how to market to the guy based on his history.

All well and good, but not useful. A library ERM system has to make decisions on what electronic products to allow to a customer based on *current needs* with a *current !anonymous! customer*, based on *current location and needs*.

The term "entitlement" suggests a preexisting (and monetary) relationship where the end user is "owed" something by the provider based on that financial relationship. That's not the librayr model. We serve everybody with our resources regardless of their ability to pay (or whether they have even set foot in the library previously. So the concept of entitlement is completely off base.

Where did you eat in Cleveland?

Alice said...

At the university. Nothing terribly glamorous to report, I'm afraid.

Last time I presented in Cleveland, however, I treated myself to the local microbrew, Great Lakes Brewing Company.