Archived copy. This is a static snapshot of the OPF community Q&A (qanda.digipres.org), preserved from its Question2Answer database. It is read-only and nothing here has been edited since capture in August 2026. To ask new questions, use the OPF community on GitHub.

IP limiting/restrictions for providing in-house access to copyrighted/restricted material?

votes

My institution is interested in providing in-house-only access to digital materials we can't simply put online -- copyrighted material, restricted materials, etc.

We currently embed digital materials directly into finding aids, and want to avoid a system that would involve implementing a separate access solution (and we know our patrons aren't interested in setting up accounts/logins, either). We are currently exploring the use of IP addresses to restrict access to the digital content to computers physically located inside our library reading room. Ideally, anybody would be able to look at the finding aid, but only IP addressess in the permitted range would be able to click through to view/download the actual digital content.

Does your institution or any other institution that you know of do something similar? Have you explored IP address restrictions for your institution? What advantages and disadvantages did you find? We're hoping to avoid re-inventing the wheel if we can.

asked by

sarah.barsness on 11 Sep 2017 · 238 views

If you're curious what our finding aids with born-digital material look like, here's an example: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr00213n.xml

— sarah.barsness, 11 Sep 2017

1 answer

votes

We do this at NYPL.

Here's an example of something with IP restrictions.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/66f1db18-ac47-4160-8b3f-c3e8a595815f

...and something public on the web

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c90cfcb0-f875-0130-a5d6-3c075448cc4b

...and something IP-restricted linked out of a finding aid

http://archives.nypl.org/scl/22026#c1279014

IP restrictions are limited by collection to the building that houses the collection. One of the big questions that we still have is making access available more generally outside of a collection's building. That's requiring high-level administration involvment.

answered by nkrabben on 13 Sep 2017

Thanks so much for the reply! Would you perhaps be open to me or my boss contacting you offline if we have any follow-up questions about specifics?

— sarah.barsness, 14 Sep 2017