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Change in the way UC-eLinks displays articles with an embargo or moving wall

May 24, 2011 Author: Lena ZentallCategories:

More full text links are now displaying in UC-eLinks due to a change in the way SFX (the software underlying UC-eLinks) handles embargoes and moving walls. This change means UC-eLinks will display more full text links from platforms that include embargoes on their content such as EBSCO, ProQuest, and Wilson databases, JSTOR, and Highwire Press (Note: This is not a definitive list.)

How it works

If no month or day details are sent in the OpenURL (which is the case for the majority of sources) UC-eLinks has to guess whether or not the OpenURL citation information falls within the embargo or moving wall period.  Because of the missing information, no accurate availability status can be calculated.

Until recently, UC-eLinks was very restrictive in its display of services, opting not to display a full text link when the full text may have been available.

Beginning immediately, UC-eLinks will display a full text link if the year of publication in the OpenURL matches UC-licensed content even if no month is included in the OpenURL. This will result in higher visibility of online content when embargoes or moving walls are in place.

Because full text links will display more often when accurate date information is absent, there will be a slight increase in the display of full text links when the article is not available because of an embargo.

Example

The journal Academic Questions has a threshold of “1987 – (current year -1) in EBSCOhost’s Academic Search Complete.  The March 2010 content is available but later 2010 content is not yet available.

  • If the OpenURL contains a month in the date metadata, then the embargo period can be calculated and links to articles falling within the embargo period will not display on the UC-eLinks menu.
  • If the OpenURL does not contain a month in the date metadata, then the embargo period cannot be correctly calculated.  With only the year of publication available, full text links to articles within the embargo period may appear erroneously in the UC-eLinks menu window.

Analysis at Ex Libris, the providers of the SFX software, has shown that the benefits of increasing the visibility of the full text of possibly embargoed content far outweighs the slight increase in potentially failed links.