Faculty Resources: Library Content in Blackboard

• Accessibility: Many databases include accessibility options such as text-to-speech and easy-to-read fonts.

• Consistency: Some links may require additional information to access remotely. This is not a concern when using a permalink, as they will work anywhere!

• Context: Many databases provide additional information about their articles, including subject keywords. Some databases also allow you to browse journals and trace citations.

• Copyright: You can link to an article in a database or e-journal and remain copyright compliant, but you cannot always copy an article and upload it to Blackboard without permission. 

• Analytics: Most databases keep track of how often their content is accessed. Librarians use this information when making decisions about which journal and database subscriptions to renew.

In general, you can almost always create a persitent link by following the directions in the opposite box for adding the proxy.

However, some databases do not require adding the Proxy, or have other (simpler) means of creating a persistent link.

To check how to create a persistent link for a specific database, you can check out our All Databases Guide!

If databases have an option for persistent links, there will be a tab on this guide with specific directions on how to do so.

Many databases have an option for creating a persistent link. In most cases, it's just a matter of clicking a permalink button. In other cases it requires adding the proxy information that authenticates off-campus users.

Generally, you can use use the library catalog record to generate the permalink. This is the fastest and easiest way to create a persistent link.

Creating a persistent link to an article in a database will differ, depending on the database. Use the links on the left to determine how to build a persistent link for our most highly used databases.  When you create the persistent link, you will need to make sure it has two important parts:

1. The proxy URL:  https://kettering.idm.oclc.org/login?url=
2. The article link provided by the database

The persistent link looks something like this:

•  https://kettering.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-15-8542-5

If the proxy is not automatically included in the link, you can add it in front of the article URL so your off-campus students will be able to view the resource.

If you copy the URL at the top of the screen and the proxy information is not included, your off-campus students may not have access because the URL does not always include the proxy information. It depends on the database.

Always test your links from on-campus and off-campus.

Information for this guide was adapted from Oregon State University Libraries under a  Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License.