Linking to Electronic Journals
Jump to: Why link to e-articles? | Which databases allow linking? | How do I set up links? | Where's the best place to put links.
Why link to e-articles?
Easy online access to more journals
Most publishers now provide electronic access to full text articles, mainly through databases. The Library subscribes to the best of these databases and provides online access to thousands of scholarly journal titles across the full range of the University's teaching and research disciplines.
Which databases allow linking?
An increasing number of e-journal publishers and licensed aggregators are enabling direct linking to individual articles. The trend among publishers (e.g. ScienceDirect) is to use Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to uniquely identify articles and to facilitate permanent, stable links to them. The DOI is becoming a widely-accepted standard for this purpose.
Some database providers who do not own their own content, but who licence it in from publishers (e.g. EBSCO and JSTOR), have developed their own mechanisms for proving reliable links to articles in their databases.
How do I set up links?
Databases Using DOIs
- SAGE Journals Online
- ScienceDirect
EBSCO Databases
- Academic Search Premiere
- Business Source Premiere
JSTOR
Where's the best place to put links?
Web page
You may wish to set up a reading materials web page through:
- Blackboard or Sakai
- A web authoring tool like Dreamweaver; or
- A simple html file
Word document
You may prefer to put up a MS Word file for student access. Any persistent link you put into a Word document should translate into a hotlink which will open up directly to the article for you both on and off campus.