For Faculty

Library Resources are carefully selected and purchased with student use in mind.  We pay a great deal of attention to which of our resources actually get used so that we can allocate our resources in the most effective way.  How many users "click-through" is a statistic that weighs heavily in our decisions.  Therefore, it is important both for copyright reasons and for library allocation resources that you LINK to our electronic offerings rather than providing a copy directly to the student (which may also be illegal). 

Because library resources are restricted to the Potsdam community, when users are off-campus, we authenticate their connection to SUNY Potsdam through a proxy service which requires them to log-in.  Linking to a library resource requires the presence of the proxy prefix in front of the resource URL so that students will be passed through as a valid user. 

Below are procedures for creating usable links to library resources.  Note: it is important that YOU TEST LINKS FROM OFF-CAMPUS before distributing them to students.  We are happy to help you trouble shoot any difficulties!  Contact library@potsdam.edu for assistance.

There are several options for obtaining good links to library resources.  First, find the full-text of the resource you want to link to.  If you have a resource in mind, but cannot find the full-text, please contact the library and we can help you determine if it is lurking somewhere in our database.  To make a permalink to a full-text library resource, you will be in one of these four situations:

1. Many library databases will provide a pre-formatted link, often called a "permalink" for you.
2. Sometimes you can create a link by appending the proxy prefix ( https://potsdam.idm.oclc.org/login?url= ) to the resource URL
3. Some databases (listed below) have unique methods.
4. Sometimes you can't create a single link, but need to provide a link to the database and tell the student how to search for the resource.

Permalinks:

Ebsco is our biggest database provider:

• all Ebsco records, no matter which database you are in, have a "permalink" toggle that can be found on the right side of the record for a given item (see screen shot below).
• Clicking this opens a permalink bar at the top of the record which has the URL that you can copy and paste into your syllabus, moodle, etc.(see second screen shot below)
• Note that this permalink leads the user back to the RECORD, not the full text.
• Make sure that there is a link to the full-text on the left side of the page, such as a link to a PDF, or all the student will get is the record.