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Linking to readings via Ovid

By Hazel M Ingrey, on 11 September 2017

Ovid is a large database which provides access to many journals, books and some audio-visual resources.  If you need to bookmark a journal article from here you will find the link is not stable: when you return to the reading the link may not work – and therefore is not helpful to your students.

The easy solution

Make a basic bookmark and the library will turn this into a stable link for you:

  • Bookmark the page as usual: in Ovid, this works beautifully so all the bibliographic data will pull through nicely.
  • Use the ‘Library note’ to flag that the link needs upgrading.
  • When you have completed your reading list, click ‘Request review’.  TLS will be notified to check your list and we will update the link to a stable link.

Request review

 

 

How is this done?

A surprising number of academics, learning technologists and librarians ask how they can do this themselves, so the following is for them:

  • Navigate to the article
  • First click on ‘Email jumpstart’ and from the popup box, copy the jumpstart URL (click on the image below for the screenshot)
  • Then bookmark as usual from the article, but replace the ‘Weblink’ with the ‘jumpstart’ URL.

Ovid jumpstart

 

 

 

 

 

For help with bookmarking from other specialist resources, look to the tag cloud on the right of this page and select ‘non-standard bookmarking‘. Or, of course, do get in touch any time.

 

Linking to Harvard Business Review

By Hazel M Ingrey, on 11 September 2017

Harvard Business Review articles are often key resources for students across UCL, particularly in the UCL School of Management.

UCL Library subscribes to this resource online, making it readily available to students.  It is available through the EBSCOhost platform. However academics wishing to direct students to readings will find that technical measures inhibit them from creating a durable link to an article.  This is to reinforce the licence terms which do not allow academic institutions to use HBR material in ‘electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources.’.

How to help students to key readings, whilst still respecting the licence restrictions?  You can signal to students which readings are interesting to read, and the library will turn this into a permitted link at the most granular level allowed.

  • Bookmark the page as usual, so enough of the bibliographic detail is saved to be clear which reading you are recommending. Even more helpful, add the ‘Accession number’ from the article into the student or library note.
  • Use the ‘Library note’ to flag that this is an HBR link which needs upgrading.
  • When you have completed your reading list, click ‘Request review’.  TLS will be notified to check your list and we will update the link to a stable link, from where students can reasonably click to search for the relevant article.

Request review

 

 

 

 

For help with bookmarking from other specialist resources, look to the tag cloud on the right of this page and select ‘non-standard bookmarking‘. Or, of course, do get in touch any time.

Link rot

By Hazel M Ingrey, on 7 October 2016

I was reading recently about link rot, that modern nuisance when links to a resource or webpage no longer work.

It is food for thought when refreshing your online reading list for this term. Keep link rot in mind when creating links to new readings: if you have linked to webpages of an organisation that subsequently changes name, or readings on a shady website, students may find the pages no longer available the following year.

Occasionally it even happens in paid journal subscriptions: this year an Archaeology journal was taken over by a different publisher and every stable article link changed.

What can you do if you don’t have time to check through all your lists for broken links?  Navigate to the reading list and sign in; click ‘Review’ then ‘Request Review’.

Request Review

This sends a notification to the TLS.  We check for broken links and create more stable links where possible; we also check all books link to the library catalogue, where relevant.  If you have added a ‘Note to the library’ requesting books be purchased, or newer / more editions for the library, we pass this on to the relevant subject librarian.

 

 

How do I bookmark from COPAC?

By Sandra Bamborough, on 1 June 2016

Many academics encourage students to research more widely or use libraries beyond UCL.  If you wish to add a book to an online reading list that is not in UCL’s Explore catalogue, COPAC is a useful alternative.  It is a union catalogue, searching 90+ UK library catalogues including the British Library, University libraries and specialist research libraries.  Most teaching staff prefer this to a commercial alternative, such as Amazon or online bookshops.

Bookmarking from COPAC is slightly different.  Start as usual:

  • Navigate to the title of the relevant item
  • click on the ‘Add to My Bookmarks’ button

At this point, instead of turning into the bookmarking screen, you will see a new link called ‘Bookmark to reading list’ appear to the right of the bibliographic information, under the locations details (see below):

COPAC 8

 

  • click on this ‘Bookmark to reading list’ link to bookmark the item as usual (ignore the contents of the screen on the right).
  • check the item links correctly from the reading list.

This has been a frequent question this week – even from one of our ReadingLists@UCL team!

For other FAQs on non-standard bookmarking, look to the tag cloud on the right of this page and select ‘non-standard bookmarking’

A librarian asks: which books are not in the library?

By Sandra Bamborough, on 25 January 2016

We were recently asked by a librarian if there was any way to see which books on a reading list did not link out to the book in the library catalogue, Explore?  Librarians check through newly updated reading lists to ensure books and other resources have been purchased, where possible.  Once purchased, librarians can also update the reading list to link to the available book or journal.

 

csvTo answer the librarian: there is a way to check this!  You can ‘export’ a reading list into a spreadsheet (CSV) format.

Sort by ‘Type’ to view all ‘Books’ and if the ‘Local Control Number’ field is blank there is no link to Explore. Either UCL doesn’t hold the resource, or the academic didn’t make a link to it.

This can also be useful for those librarians who are updating lists, or who have inherited one and want to check whether you need to link any items to the catalogue to make them more readily accessible for students.

Of course, you can also ask our team to do the checking for you, by publishing the reading list and clicking on the ‘Request review’ button. TLSS will check through and link to books or journals where possible, or update unstable links to e-books or e-journal articles.

Help with your reading lists

By Sandra Bamborough, on 2 July 2014

Did you see our recent blog and all the good things students had to say about our ReadingLists@UCL?

If that’s not enough to encourage you to start on yours now and get ahead of the flow ready for the new term, here’s a hard-to-beat offer: there is a little more TLSS project time available for inputting new reading lists should you find yourself becoming short of time.

The TLSS team are also more than happy to review your lists for you, should you prefer to create your own list then have someone check the links are stable and the resources are in the library. To request a review, ‘Publish’ your list and you will be given the option to also click ‘Request review’.

To make the most of these services please email any new reading lists to readinglists@ucl.ac.uk or click the ‘Request review’ button.