(12 October 2017) Project MUSE, the trusted source for humanities and social science content from university presses and scholarly publishers, has expanded its relationship with Google Scholar to include implementation of Campus Activated Subscriber Access (CASA), providing seamless access to subscribed or purchased content for an institution’s users even when off campus or from a mobile device. An extension of Google Scholar’s Subscriber Links service, CASA makes note of a user’s institutional affiliation when they access content from an authorized on-campus location, and then enables continued access to their library’s MUSE journal and book holdings from home or when using a device not connected to the institution’s network.
Anurag Acharya, co-creator of Google Scholar, said, “CASA builds on Google Scholar’s Subscriber Links program which provides direct links in the search interface to subscribed collections for on-campus users. With CASA, a researcher can start a literature survey on campus and resume where she left off once she is home, or travelling, with no hoops to jump through. Her subscribed collections are highlighted in Google Scholar searches and she is able to access articles in exactly the same way as on campus.”
CASA makes it easy for students and researchers to access MUSE content from anywhere without the need for proxy/VPN or other off-campus authentication systems that can act as a barrier between users and the rich scholarly materials their library holds. CASA helps libraries provide their users with the most immediate access to acquired content while supporting licensing agreements. MUSE’s participating publishers will benefit from users having frictionless access to the content on the MUSE platform, encouraging and increasing usage of the authorized versions.
“We are excited to once again work with Google Scholar to further streamline access to content on the MUSE platform,” said Wendy Queen, Director, Project MUSE. “Initiatives like CASA and Subscriber Links benefit all of our constituencies, by connecting users to authoritative content quickly and reliably, wherever they chose to do their research.”
No action is required by the subscribing institution to enable CASA; users utilizing Google Scholar will, once their affiliation is recorded from on-campus, experience seamless access to their library’s licensed MUSE content at home and on mobile. Users periodically refresh their CASA affiliation by visiting Google Scholar from a campus location, and usage of MUSE articles and book chapters facilitated by CASA is included in an institution’s COUNTER statistics.
The announcement is here.
