OLinks – The OhioLINK Linking Service
OLinks – The OhioLINK Linking Service
Look up a specific journal article.
What is OLinks?
OLinks is a service that makes it easy for you to connect from a citation in a database to electronic full text for that item and/or information about its availability in print.
OLinks accepts links that request a specific citation, and determines whether electronic full text of the cited article is available, either through OhioLINK or through services your local library subscribes to. OLinks provides a link to the location of any full text and also provides information about what issues of a journal your library owns in print format.
Who can use OLinks?
OLinks is provided for the current students, staff, and faculty of OhioLINK's member institutions. Most of the services it links to are licensed for use only by OhioLINK researchers.
What databases connect to OLinks?
OhioLINK's own locally loaded databases use OLinks to connect users to electronic and print journal holdings. In addition, OhioLINK has configured its OCLC FirstSearch and RLG Eureka databases to use OLinks, and researchers with access to Chemical Abstracts SciFinder will see OLinks connections there also.
It is also possible to connect to the PubMed database using a custom URL that will enable OLinks in the PubMed MEDLINE database. That URL is <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?otool=ohiolink>.
Why is electronic full text sometimes unavailable when OLinks says it is available?
OLinks makes connections to many sources of electronic full text based on tables provided by each source listing what should be available. On occasion, an article's availability changes before we can update our tables, publishers miss an issue, or errors in publisher data cause an issue to be loaded in the wrong place. OhioLINK constantly works with publishers to make sure our own journal collection, the Electronic Journal Center is as complete and correct as we can make it, but there are times when articles that should be available are not.
Why is electronic full text sometimes available when OLinks says it is not?
OLinks makes connections to some sources of full text based on tables of specific articles, rather than whole journals, and these tables are updated every four to eight weeks. During that time, newly added articles are available, but cannot be found through OLinks. OhioLINK also subscribes to some services that provide full text, but do not provide a way to link to specific articles. OLinks cannot provide links to full text in these services.
What can I access from off campus or from branch campuses?
Off-campus users connecting via a campus proxy server should have access to any full text sources available to on-campus users. Off-campus users using OhioLINK remote authentication should have access to full text sources available from OhioLINK: the EJC and ProQuest full text. Users of OhioLINK remote authentication will usually not be able to access electronic full text from sources made available by their local library, such as JSTOR or CatchWord.
Some multi-campus universities subscribe to electronic journals only for their main campus or for select branch campuses. OLinks does not have information on which journal subscriptions are available to which branch campuses; we recommend you check with your local library for this information.
How does OLinks work?
OLinks is a web application that receives requests for citations formatted according to the OpenURL specification, currently a draft NISO standard. Requests for journal articles may be encoded using combinations of article metadata, PubMed ID numbers, or Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). Requests for other works are usually redirected to the OhioLINK Library Catalog.
When OLinks receives a citation request, it determines which OhioLINK member library you are affiliated with. It then compares the requested citation against databases of electronic journal available to all OhioLINK members, plus electronic journals available specifically to your library. If electronic full text is available, OLinks will provide a link to its location. OLinks will also provide a link to information on a journal's availability in print format.