www.eduserv.org.uk/openathens
Help your users to discover your contentWith OpenAthens & Link Resolvers
Lyn Norris
What is OpenAthens?
• Username password system• Can integrate with Active Directory or portal• Recognised by all major publishers• Designed for librarians• Remote access system for librarians• IP independent subscriber definition• Categorised statistics
Libraries purchase OpenAthens because:
• No IT support at all• Need library website & user management• Can install & run it from the library
• Remote access • No IT support to run EZproxy or VPN• Access to network from offsite not permitted
• IP topology doesn’t match their subscriber base• large organisations with a single IP address range• US Dept of Defence; Dept of Veterans Affairs, hospital groups
• Want granular statistics of usage• Abbott Labs, BP
MyAthens – internet portal
Email your users
• OpenAthens users are self-selected• Users created on demand• Manually, from spreadsheets, from self registration
• Generate email lists• Inform them of your resources• Offer training sessions
Resources – available to patrons off-site
• But patrons don’t understand ‘resources’• Where to find a particular journal• Maybe journals or ebooks would be better• Journal A-Z
Hand crafted journal list
EBSCO A-Z list – with IP & Athens links
What about search?
• Multiple publisher platforms, all with individual search
• Users want to search across them all• Library options are Google Scholar & PubMed – Journal article information
• Need associated link resolvers
Link Resolvers
• Libraries can buy access to the same journal from different platforms– Direct from publishers– Or from an aggregator like Ovid, EBSCO or Ingenta
• Link Resolvers route the user to the appropriate copy for his library• Examples:
– EBSCO’s Link Source– TDNET’s link resolver– SFX– Serials Solutions
• Need to be configured for the library’s collection• And their authentication routes
Quosa document delivery
• New product from Elsevier• Corporate clients with document delivery accounts• Quosa intercepts doc del requests from link
resolver• Checks against already purchased articles• Only then sends request to doc del service
Discovery Services
• EBSCO Discovery• Serials Solutions Summon
• Take knowledge of your collection• Run searches across your collection• Use link resolvers to take user to appropriate copies
Help users to discover your collection
• OpenAthens for remote access & Internet portal• Publicise resources on portal• Journal A-Z for journal discovery• Link Resolvers hooked into PubMed & Google
Scholar
• Get more usage from your subscriptions
Thank you