Permalinks ensure Davidson College affiliated researchers can access our resources. When linking content from a library database, make sure you use a Permalink rather than the url in the address bar. There are multiple ways to access the permalink in a database, each platform has a slightly different look and access to the links. Below are examples of what this looks like on popular Davidson resources, ProQuest database platform, and linking from our catalog. Sometimes, the help section of a database tells you if a URL is permanent. The best thing you can do is test the link yourself.
URLs for PDFs are usually permanent and can be treated as persistent links. Project Muse is an example of a database that provides a permanent URL with its PDFs:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_scholarly_publishing/v042/42.2.gould.pdf
Sometimes, the help section of a database tells you if a URL is permanent. The best thing you can do is test the link yourself.
Note: A permalink also known as a persistent link, document URL, persistent URL, PURL, durable link/URL, or stable link/URL.
Permanent links show up in various places, depending on the database, for instance, in ProQuest the persistent link shows up on the abstract/details of the record:
From our Catalog, permalinks can be pulled from the results page.
DOIs are digital object identifiers. If a database provides a DOI for a full-text article in the item record, you can use it to make a persistent link. Just copy the DOI and append it to this URL: http://dx.doi.org/
Some databases that include DOIs are Web of Knowledge and CSA Illumina.
Here is an example:
The persistent link for this article would be:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6947-8-23
If you're having trouble creating a persistent link for a full-text article, try looking up the DOI at http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/.
