I'd consider including a call to oadoi.org to see if each one has an open access version available, and linking to that in addition to any link to paywalled content.

Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kevin Hawkins
Sent: Thursday, 26 January 2017 4:16 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] LibX, Google Scholar with "library links", and other interfaces to licensed resources

I've got two simple questions but first a long statement of background so you know why I'm asking.  If you're in a hurry, feel free to skip to the questions.

== Background ==

We've got a research group on campus that has built up an annotated bibliography of literature in their topic of study over the years, which graduate students have carefully organized according to a taxonomy of topics.  They are happy to continue to host this bibliography online as a searchable database.

However, they've asked us in the library to help them think through what it would mean for them to help people reach the full text when available online (often through licensed library resources).  Supporting users at our institution is easy -- we can prepend the proxy server string to the DOI, or query our link resolver, or query our library discovery product.
  But I'd also like to offer some options for what they could do to help users not at our institution.

Including a hyperlinked DOI or other publisher-provided permalink will allow users at other institutions who are on campus and using VPN to reach the resource directly, assuming their institution subscribes.  So while that's an easy solution, it only helps certain users.

In brainstorming with a colleague, we've come up with two other options that we might offer to the research group for helping users at other institutions reach the full text:

a) They could recommend that users install LibX and then use its "magic button" feature to select the citation and search for it through their institution's library.

b) They could build queries that go to Google Scholar and suggest that Google Scholar users configure "library links" in order to prepend their institution's proxy server link or send them to their link resolver.

While I know that Google Scholar's database includes plenty of bare citations (without any links to full text), I'm not sure it's big enough to actually include the sorts of book chapters and possibly obscure journal articles found in this bibliography.  But I'm content to leave that to the research group to experiment with.

== The questions ==

1. Does anyone have a sense of the number of institutions with "editions" for LibX versus the number of institutions with "library links" set up in Google Scholar?  I can't find full lists on the websites of either, but if we know that one is more comprehensive than the other, I'd just as soon recommend that.

2. Are there other options you'd suggest besides LibX and Google Scholar (with "library links") for helping people people find a library-licensed version of a resource when you don't know what institution the user is at?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Kevin

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