InterPay: Managing Multiple Payment Mechanisms in Digital Libraries.

Abstract

We propose an architecture called InterPay for managing financial interactions with for-pay digital library services. The approach accommodates multiple payment mechanisms, interaction models, and charging policies. Key components of our model are payment agents and payment capabilities that encapsulate payment policy and the details of payment on behalf of the user. Collection agents and collection capabilities provide similar encapsulation for the service provider. The architecture supports interactions ranging from individual users directly interacting with the service provider to institutional users accessing information brokers via a corporate library. We also describe a prototype system that implements the InterPay architecture, allowing access to real services under varying payment policies. 1 Introduction In an ideal world, access to information and services would be free. However, collecting and providing access to information and services is expensive and these costs must b...