Kyle Napoli – Page 2 – What's New at the Library

Testing, testing… Is LibKey on?

During this academic year, the library is testing out a new piece of software called LibKey, and it will change some of the ways you interact with our online resources. Our goal for this year-long pilot is to see if it provides easier access to both our paid subscriptions and open access articles.

FAQ

What is LibKey?

LibKey calls their product an “active and dynamic linking technology” and it fits between you, the open web, and the library collection.

For online articles that have a DOI or PMID number assigned to them, LibKey collates information about the article — including our subscribed journal holdings, open access status, and retraction details — to calculate your best link to that scholarly content.

If LibKey cannot find a direct link or if an online resource does not have a DOI or PMID, you will be immediately forwarded to our catalog to check our access options or place an ILL (Interlibrary Loan) request.

What should I expect?

You may see new link options when you search the library catalog. From your search results, you may be able to link directly to a PDF (Download PDF) and see an article in the context of a whole journal issue (View Issue Contents). You should also encounter better linking to articles available as Open Access.

Screenshot of an Article in the Reed Library catalog, with Title, authors, publisher information. Links include "Download PDF", "View Issue Contents", and "Available Online".

When using the “Check Reed Holdings” buttons in our subscription databases, you will see improved linking options on the intermediary LibKey details page.

Screenshot showing the LibKey full text options page, with links including "Download PDF" and "Article Link"

If you add the LibKey Nomad extension to your web browser, you will be able to connect to library-subscribed content, even when searching the open web, whenever you see this badge:

When starting from PubMed or Wikipedia, the Nomad extension will show you which articles you have access to through Reed library subscriptions or open access.

Screenshot of wikipedia results with LibKey access buttons inserted below the citation.

What should I do if something isn’t working?

Send an email through our Ask a Librarian form (scroll down to the Send a message section), including as much detail as you can. Screenshots are always welcome.

We will especially want to know what browser you are using, where you started your search (e.g., the library catalog, Google or Google Scholar, PubMed, etc.), and what happened.

Recommendation: refresh your Zotero add-on

Over the summer, library staff have encountered some issues accessing electronic resources and discovered that the block is caused by the Zotero Connector browser add-on in both Chrome and Firefox.

If you already have the Zotero Connector installed, we recommend uninstalling and reinstalling it in all the browsers you use. (In our testing, we have found that first-time installations of the add-on seem to be unaffected.)

Visit our Zotero guide for quick access to the download link.

Problems accessing resources off-campus?

This summer, the library updated the proxy, a technical aspect of how we handle access to electronic resources from off-campus.

Despite extensive testing before the proxy update, we have recently received numerous reports from people having problems reaching our resources when working off-campus – these could be ebooks, databases, journals, or articles.

We know how frustrating it is to encounter a problem like this, and we all feel the start of the semester looming. We want to make sure you can access every electronic resource you need!

If you are experiencing issues, please try these common fixes:

Starting from a Bookmark

If you are starting from a bookmark in your browser, that bookmark may have old proxy information in it. To resolve this, try to reach the desired resource through our database A-Z list or through a catalog search, then create a new bookmark and delete the old one.

If you cannot reach the desired resource by any means, please report it to our help queue by emailing er-problem-report[at]reed.edu.

Starting from the Catalog

If you are starting from a catalog search, and you get an error when you try to open a link, it may be that the URL does not have the updated proxy prefix.

If you see the old prefix https://login.proxy.library.reed.edu/login?url= in front of the address, try to paste the new prefix in its place: https://reed.idm.oclc.org/login?url=

Whether that works or not, it would be very helpful if you could report the access problem to our help queue by emailing er-problem-report[at]reed.edu. We will work with the vendor and the proxy company to make sure that resource link is updated.

Reporting a Problem

If you do have to email a report to our help queue, please include the following details:

if you were on or off campus at the time

what operating system you use

what browser(s) you use

where you started (bookmark, A-Z list, catalog search, etc.)

what kind of problem you encountered

the name of the resource you wanted to reach