[Koha-devel] Suggestions requested for a feature / enhancement based around opac-retrieve-file.pl

[Indranil Das Gupta]

Hi all,

the current Koha::Upload.pm and opac-retrieve-file.pl allows for a
uploaded file (e.g. PDF) to be displayed on the OPAC as long as the
flag is set to public.

I know how many librarians feel about reader history privacy and they
are protective about it for good reason. In this context, I'm faced
with the following two use-cases:

In India, e-books with archival rights are gaining ground over
hardcopy. As it happens the buyer (institutional library) has to give
an undertaking that it will implement reasonable safeguards to ensure
that while all their bonafide users should have access to the books,
these shall not be presented to the users in such as way as to permit
un-monitored access / downloads by un-authenticated users etc along
with maintenance of any access log for any necessary compliance.

Or for example PhD theses where many institutions across India have an
embargo on the full-text online access for non-members for a period
upto 2 years from the date of publication, but no such restriction
exist for bonafide authorised users.

I am working on an early stage prototype to support this sort of
functionality. My question here to  you all is that how far are we
open as devs and librarians to accept such an extension into Koha? Of
course, there would be a syspref that will have to be set for the
functionality to  kick in.

Suggestions? Comments?

regards
indranil

--
Indranil Das Gupta
L2C2 Technologies

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