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Linking to Library Resources
Why do we even need instructions?
You'd think it would be easy to link to an article, ebook, or streaming video from the libraries' databases. Just copy and paste the URL in the browser, right? Sometimes that works, but often you must modify the URL to create a permalink.
What's a permalink? That's shorthand for "permanent link," which is a stable URL that will always work when clicked. Also called persistent link or durable link. This permalink contains our proxy prefix which directs off-campus users to our proxy server.
What's a proxy server? This is how we control off-campus access to most (but not all) of our databases. When a person is off-campus, they must login, and their traffic is re-routed through a proxy server that masks their IP address and fools the database into thinking they're on-campus.
How is their traffic re-routed? The link contains a proxy prefix in front of the database URL that looks like this: https://newman.richmond.edu/login?url=
Clear as mud? Let's look at various ways to create permalinks to our databases.