Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

General principles when linking
When linking to electronic journals at article level it is important to use
a ‘stable URL’, i.e. a link that will remain constant throughout
commercial or archival changes (such as a change of publisher). Some
electronic journals allow you to create stable links to an article simply by
using the URL or web address you get when you retrieve the article. In
other databases, for example JSTOR and Ingenta, URLs contain session
information that will expire after a period of time so cannot be used to
create stable links. Therefore they cannot by copied and used in online
bibliographies or course websites. These databases often provide a
method for generating stable URLs which can then be used to create
article-level links. You should also note:
■
there may be authentication problems linking to some databases,
which means users are prompted for a password;
■
some of the electronic journals may not be accessible from outside
your institutional network because of the licence agreement and the
use of IP authentication. This means that links will only work within
your network and users will need to be notified.
Locating electronic journal titles
The first phase in creating links to e-journals is ensuring that academics
are easily able to identify the range of titles to which your institution
subscribes. This is often not as easy as you might think, particularly
when titles are purchased from a number of aggregators. Increasingly,
academic libraries are purchasing serials management systems, such as
150

---

Case studies and practical examples
TDNet and Serials Solutions, to solve this problem and ensure their users
have an up-to-date list of e-journal titles. However, many institutions
maintain separate listings of e-journals or use the library catalogue.
Whatever method is used, do consider that to fully exploit the range of
titles to which you are subscribing, users must be able to easily identify
the titles they need.
Creating stable URLs
To create stable URLs there are two approaches:
■
using DOIs;
■
creating stable URLs directly.
Using DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers)
DOIs are discussed in some detail in Chapter 5. They are unique,
unchanging numbers or ‘global identifiers’, designed to facilitate the
location and management of digital objects or content, such as electronic
journal articles. More than merely ‘links’ they are unique identifiers that
allow global access to the content as long as you are entitled to that
content through an institutional subscription.
What do they look like and where do I find them?
DOIs are typically found on the top left-hand corner of abstracts,
mentioned in the Table of Contents, printed at the top or bottom of an
article, alongside traditional citation details and in bibliographic lists.
They typically appear thus:
DOI: 10.1239/jap/1019737983
DOIs are composed of a prefix and a suffix. The prefix always begins
with 10.xxxx/ where xxxx is a unique number assigned to a registrant in
the DOI system (usually a publisher). For example, 10.1016 refers to
Elsevier. The suffix specifies an individual item/document.
How do I use DOIs?
To use DOIs in web browsers it is necessary to prefix the DOI with the
URL of a DOI resolver. Therefore all DOIs must be prefixed by:
http://dx.doi.org/
151

---

Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
Make sure you don’t leave any spaces when copying and pasting DOIs
as these will be interpreted as part of the number and the item will not
be resolved correctly.