LinkOut Support Meeting Summary

We held a LinkOut Support meeting at MLA for people involved in supporting LinkOut in their libraries May 6, 2003 3:00 pm - 4:15 pm. There were 48 participants. About half were already LinkOut users, the other half were not.  We welcome any who were unable to attend to read this summary and provide feedback.

Part One: LinkOut Update

Kathy Kwan from LinkOut gave an update on LinkOut, and discussed plans for future development.

STATISTICS

• In April 2003, LinkOut resources received 11 million hits per month, around half a million hits per work day.
• As of May 1, there were 953 LinkOut providers, 663 of them libraries. 365 SERHOLD libraries chose to display their print holdings in LinkOut.
• 122 full-text providers supply full-text links to 3813 journals.
• 74% of PubMed citations from 1999 onwards have full-text links.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Many full-text providers joined LinkOut, including Ovid (who has many libraries customers).
• The LinkOut SERHOLD interface (SERHOLD libraries display their print holdings in LinkOut) went into full-production stage in January 2003 with no limit on daily participation.
• We formalized the registration process. Registration requests should be sent to lib-reg@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
• We enhanced the documentation and added a tutorial "Setting up LinkOut for Libraries".
• There were a number of enhancements in the Submission Utility:
  • Added the Provide Icon function to let libraries to store icons at NCBI.
  • Added Statistics function to show usage of library links.
  • Added the ability to delay inclusion of a journal's latest issues to get around the embargo period of the journal.

FUTURE PLANS

1. Incorporate print holdings from non-SERHOLD libraries.
2. Include links to author's pages, especially to supplementary materials for the article, or full-text if possible.
   • Feedback: More information about this feature should be posted so that libraries can promote this to their users.
   • Answer:  We will do this.
3. To increase links to more free full-text, especially government publications. Users can now search "loattrfree full-text [filter]" for these links.
4. The listserv LINKOUT-L@uic.edu will be expanded to let users interested in LinkOut exchange ideas and help out one another.
   • Feedback: The listserv should be documented in the LinkOut home page and accessible under the Contact Us category at the side bar. Announcements should be made about this listserv in library-linkout and other regional listserv.
   • Answer:  We did this when we got back from MLA.  Thank you for your feedback. 
     Please Note:   This list is not moderated by NCBI. Please write to lib-linkout@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov to send questions or comments to the LinkOut team at NCBI.

Part 2: Experience Sharing

Mark Goldstein, the LinkOut representative from the NNLM New England region, shared his experience in training librarians.  Take a look his LinkOut Training Experience document.

In addition to the materials covered in the document, Mark commented on library concerns which are not LinkOut related directly:

1. Firewall and proxy issues.
2. Legal issues if their holdings are represented in LinkOut.

Part 3: Discussion Points for LinkOut Training

The LinkOut team presented led a discussion with some training tips.  Take a look at Discussion Points for LinkOut Training. 

The participants had the following suggestions for LinkOut development.

• Feedback:  Would you consider direct input from a serials management system to save work?
  • Answer:  We would be happy to experiment with inputting files directly from a serials management product if they wanted to develop an XML submission option.  The product would need to be capable of article level linking.  Please contact your serials management provider and encourage them to develop this option.
• Feedback:  The "holding" parameter is too cryptic.  Can there be an alias URL for activating the library icon?  Can libraries choose their LinkOut user names?
  • Answer:  Currently, this is not possible.  We suggest that you hide the special URL behind a link or a button for your patrons to search.  Alternatively, patrons can select your library in Cubby.
• Feedback:  Limiting a search to library holdings with the loprov filter too cryptic.
  • Answer:  We are looking into ways to improve this.  In the meantime, you can set up special searches to link to your web page.  For example, to set up a link to limit for holdings in a library, use:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=medlib&cmd=search&term=loprovmedlib[filter]
    where "medlib" is the User Name assigned to your library.

    We will be updating our FAQ with information on how to set up special searches.

• Feedback:  The new free full text search loattrfree full-text [filter] is too cryptic.  Suggestions include checkbox, limits, and icons.
  • Answer:  When we got back from MLA, we developed an alias for this.  You can now search by either of the following subsets:
    free full text [sb]
    OR
    free full-text [sb]
  
  We hope to continue to improve this new capability.  Watch for announcements.
• Feedback:  Add the ability to let libraries to include free full-text in their holdings in just one check.
  • Answer:  We will consider this for future development.
• Feedback:  Will presence in LinkOut increase ILL?
  • Answer:  LinkOut does potentially bring a higher visibility to your library holdings. Whether that will increase a library's ILL activities is not known.  This will be a good question to post to the new LinkOut discussion list.

 

Please send questions and comments about LinkOut for Libraries to lib-linkout@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.