Adding Electronic Resources to Syllabi and BlackBoard  

Links to electronic resources can be tricky.  There are two reasons for this. 

First, an electronic resource link goes through FSU's proxy login.  This is a way of letting the database that is being searched know that someone from FSU is searching it, rather than a member of the public.  This lets the database know that articles and access has been provided by FSU. 

Second, electronic resources often use session cookies to identify individual search sessions.  So, the links you see in the header are really temporary locations for the article, search results, etc.  These temporary links were created just for your search session and will cease to function after a few hours.

How to copy and paste a link to an electronic resource

1. Hold your mouse over the link.  Look along the bottom edge of your web browser.  The URL you see there is the link to the resource. 
2.  Right click the link.
3. A menu will open where your mouse is.  Scroll down and choose “Copy Link Location”.
4. Paste the link where you want it.

A Better Way: Persistent URLs:  A link that never breaks:
(Excellent for Blackboard, Websites, Research Guides, etc):   

FSU Libraries maintains a MySQL database of Persistent URLs and a corresponding URLs.  When you cut and paste in a Persistent URL, the link to the database will never change and will not break unless and until FSU no longer subscribes to the database.

FSU Libraries' Persistent URLs are easy to recognize, because they contain /get/ in the URL. Since the URL passes through MySQL it will point to the correct place, even if the vendor changes their location.

To add a link using a Persistent URL:

1. Go to the "DatabasesAZ" LibGuide at
   http://guides.lib.fsu.edu/DatabasesAZ
2. The first tab contains all of the databases FSU Libraries has access to along with the /get/ link. The remasining tabs are those same databases,buit with descrptions.
   
3. Copy the /get/ database link by selecting it from the table.
   

1. Go to http://lib.fsu.edu/
2. Search in the library catalog for the book (or other resource) that you want.
3. Click to the record for that resource.
4. Look at the links along the top of the record.  One of them is called "permalink".
5. Right click "permalink".
6. A menu will open where your mouse is.  Scroll down and choose “Copy Link Location”.
7. Paste the link where you want it.

This link will not really be permanent.  However, any links added in this way will all break at the same time.  So, if you have a list of links added this way, then you only need to check one of them each semester in order to verify that all work.

A catalog book permalink looks like this: http://fsu.catalog.fcla.edu/permalink.jsp?23FS027135850

Search for your article in a database or in Summon. When you find the full text article you can create a link just to that article. Depending on the vendor, it may or may not be easy.

• Gale: The URL link is at the bottom of the article.
• Proquest: Go to Cite, then see the URL. in APA, AMA, Chicago, Turabian, but not MLA.
• LexisNexus: Use the chain icon on the top right side of the article, when the box pops up right click the title of the article and copy link location. This is your link.
• EBSCO: Click on Permalink on the right side.