Permalinks ensure Davidson College affiliated researchers are using the correct links to access our resources. When linking content from a library database, be sure you use a Permalink rather than the URL in the browser address bar. There are multiple ways to access the permalink depending on which platform you are using.
Below are examples of what this looks like on popular Davidson resources. First, a ProQuest database platform linking to an article, and the second linking from our catalog. The best thing you can do is test the link yourself in another browser to see if you are able to access your article or ebook.
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. See this example:
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 on the database search results page, for instance in ProQuest the persistent link shows up on the abstract/details of the record as seen below. Choose the All Options on the upper far right corner and a pop-up screen will appear with the permalink shown at the top. Copy the URL from there.
From our Catalog, permalinks can be pulled from the search results page, or the individual record result 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/.
