Create Links to Articles, Databases, and Library Catalog Records

The Consortium Library subscribes to a vast array of online resources that are accessible to students, faculty and staff on campus and off campus. Students and instructors can create links to these resources in Blackboard and other Web pages to facilitate access.

When creating these links, two principles should be observed:

1) Link to a persistent URL, not a session URL.

Most databases create a session when you access them. If you bookmark or copy this URL it will contain session information. When you later access this URL it will be invalid because the session information has expired.

• For articles, many of the databases provide a "Link to this Article" feature when viewing a specific article. Use this URL to create a persistent link to a specific article.
• For databases,  find the appropriate link on the Consortium Library website, right click on it, select copy shortcut, then paste it into your document.  By using the link from the library website, you are insuring that the URL contains the correct login and proxy information (see below).
• For library catalog records, view the full details for a title and click on the "Share" button.  You can send the persistent URL to a social website like delicious or use bit.ly to create a shortened URL.   You can also just copy and paste the long URL from bit.ly.

2) Include the proxy information for off-campus access.

The library maintains a proxy server to authenticate off-campus users for access to subscription resources. Users are prompted to login with their university e-mail username and password.

The proxy information is encoded in the URL as a prefix. For example, in this link to the Academic Search Premier from Ebsco, the bold characters are part of the proxy prefix and the non-bold characters are the login URL.

http://proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.epnet. com/login.asp?profile=web&defaultdb=aph

If you leave out the proxy prefix, the link will still work correctly for on-campus users. But off-campus users will be prompted by a vendor login and denied access.