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Electronic Resources Guide

This guide provides linking information for electronic resources..

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.

Locating Permalinks

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.

visual of upper right corner of a ProQuest article

 

Example of save options with permalink circled

 

From our Catalog, permalinks can be pulled from the search results page, or the individual record result page.

Example of catalog record with arrow pointed out the permalink icon

Example of a catalog record with the copy permalink option pointed out

Digital object identifiers (DOIs)

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: https://dx.doi.org/

Example of a ProQuest article with the DOI accented with red box

The persistent link for this article would be:
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods13152322