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Electronic Journals: A Selected Resource Guide

(archival resource, no longer maintained)

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Reference linking

Since the advent of the first electronic journals, librarians have dreamed that references in an e-journal article would contain hyperlinks pointing directly to the full-text of the article referenced, and that citations in online bibliographic databases would similarly link to the full text of the journal articles.

In November 1999, a group of scientific journal publishers known as PILA (Publishers Internet Linking Association, Inc.) announced the launch of the CrossRef project, designed to facilitate reference linking between journals. CrossRef is an outgrowth of the DOI-X database, an exploratory project designed to facilitate DOI (Digital Object Identifier) lookups. The CrossRef database is used to translate citation metadata into a DOI. The DOI resolver is then used to translate the DOI into a URL, thus completing the link between citation and article.

A hurdle that has recently been overcome is providing access to the "appropriate copy" of the full-text. Since a particular journal article may be served up by a variety of vendors or even a variety of locations from the same vendor, a library would like to link its users to the copy for which the library has a subscription. That is, different users may need to link to different URL's, even though they represent the same intellectual content. A number of vendors have developed or are developing local "resolving systems" to allow libraries to direct their users to the appropriate copy of journal articles. SFX, now marketed by Ex Libris, was the first of these to be widely deployed.

Overviews of reference linking

http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/linkge.html
http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/linkrpt.html

"First Workshop on Linkage from Citations to Electronic Journal Literature." This one-day invitational workshop sponsored by the Nation Information Standards Organization (NISO), the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS), the Digital Library Federation (DLF), and the Society of Scholarly Publishers (SSP) on February 11, 1999, explores the challenges and solutions, from various veiwpoints.

http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/linkge2.html
http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/linkrept.html

"Report of the Second Workshop on Linkage from Citations to Journal Literature." A followup to the first workshop was held on June 9, 1999, co-sponsored by NISO, DLF, NFAIS and SSP.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july99/caplan/07caplan.html

Caplan, Priscilla. "Reference Linking for Journal Articles." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 7/8 (July/August, 1999). This paper describes a general model for linking, with emphasis on metadata and on selective resolution of identifiers; that is, delivering the appropriate copy of an item when several are available.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september99/atkins/09atkins.html

Atkins, Helen. "The ISI® Web of Science® - Links and Electronic Journals." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 9 (September, 1999). A description of how links work today in the Web of Science, and the challenges posed by electronic journals.

CrossRef and DOI solutions

http://www.crossref.org/
http://www.crossref.org/press.htm
http://www.crossref.org/faqs.htm

Homepage and press release page for the CrossRef project. The FAQ page gives the best concrete information about the design of the project.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february00/02risher.html

Atkins, Helen, et al. "Reference Linking with DOIs." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2 (February, 2000). A detailed description of the DOI-X prototype, which was the precursor to CrossRef.

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/01-winter/article1.html

Pentz, Ed. "CrossRef: A Collaborative Linking Network." Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, No. 29 (Winter, 2001). Overview of CrossRef's functions.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may01/brand/05brand.html

Brand, Amy. "CrossRef Turns One." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 5 (May, 2001). Detailed description of how CrossRef works.

Linking to the appropriate copy, and OpenURL

http://www.niso.org/DLFarch.html

Caplan, Priscilla, and Dale Flecker. "Choosing the Appropriate Copy: Report of a discussion of options for selecting among multiples copies of an electronic journal article." Bethesda, Maryland: National Information Standards Organization, September, 1999. A fairly early analysis of the problem and possible approaches.

http://www.sfxit.com/openurl/openurl.html

Van de Sompel, Herbert, Patrick Hochstenbach, and Oren Beit-Arie. "OpenURL Syntax Description." May 16, 2000.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september01/caplan/09caplan.html

Beit-Arie, Oren, et al. "Linking to the Appropriate Copy: Report of a DOI-Based Prototype." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 9 (September, 2001). Report on a project that incorporates both DOI and OpenURL to link to the appropriate copy. Also an excellent history of reference-linking efforts.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/vandesompel/03vandesompel.html

Van de Sompel, Herbert, and Oren Beit-Arie. "Open Linking in the Scholarly Information Environment Using the OpenURL Framework." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 3 (March, 2001). A fairly technical analysis of how DOI and OpenURL can work together.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/van_de_sompel/04van_de_sompel-pt1.html
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/van_de_sompel/04van_de_sompel-pt2.html
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october99/van_de_sompel/10van_de_sompel.html

Van de Sompel, Herbert, and Patrick Hochstenbach. "Reference Linking in a Hybrid Library Environment: Part 1: Frameworks for Linking." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 4 (April, 1999).

Van de Sompel, Herbert, and Patrick Hochstenbach. "Reference Linking in a Hybrid Library Environment: Part 2: SFX, a Generic Linking Solution." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 4 (April, 1999).

Van de Sompel, Herbert, and Patrick Hochstenbach. "Reference Linking in a Hybrid Library Environment: Part 3: Generalizing the SFX solution in the "SFX@Ghent & SFX@LANL" experiment." D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 10 (October, 1999).

A trio of articles by the inventors of SFX, explaining its principles and capabilities.

http://www.sfxit.com/
http://www.sfxit.com/openurl/

Explanation of SFX and OpenURL, by Ex Libris, the marketers of SFX.

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/resolver/

Powell, Andy. "OpenResolver: a Simple OpenURL Resolver." Ariadne, Issue 28 (June 22, 2001). A hands-on demonstration of OpenResolvers, a demonstration project utilizing OpenURL.

http://www.openly.com/

Openly Informatics has developed LinkBaton, a library-specific service that assures that local users will be linked to the "appropriate copy" of the text.

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