University Library > Guides > Direct Link to eReserves & Catalog

Direct Links to eReserves & the Catalog

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Faculty and staff may provide durable links to students for materials they have placed on electronic reserve (eReserve) in the HALcat, the Andersen Library Catalog, as well as Catalog searches. Some examples of eReserve materials include articles from print journals, magazines and newspapers, book chapters, poems, short stories, quizzes, homework answers, and other printed material. These links may be made from course management software such as Desire2Learn, as well as from individual faculty and staff home pages and ROAD.

Faculty and staff may also provide direct durable links to articles in electronic journals, magazines and newspapers to which Andersen Library subscribes. The Library provides access to about 13,000 electronic journals, many through online database systems such as EBSCOhost and ProQuest. To read about durable links to Library databases, please refer to the Direct Links to Electronic Journal Articles, etc. webpage.

When using durable links, there is no limit to the number of times one can link to a work. However, in order to comply with copyright restrictions the length of time is restricted to one semester. If a link is needed to an eReserve item for the subsequent semester, please contact the Circulation Department.

How It's Done

The Library employs EZproxy, a proxy server, which limits off-campus access of materials to registered students, faculty and staff of the UW-W. This helps the Library comply with copyright restrictions and licensing agreements. Off-campus persons  accessing materials will be asked to enter either their UW-W Net-ID (email name) and password (email password) or seven-digit UW-W ID number and last name. If the special coding https://libproxy.uww.edu:9443/login?url= is not added to the URL or URI for an item, there will be no off-campus access to it.

Known Problems

Proxy Server

Occasionally, people have difficulty successfully logging in to the proxy server. This is usually due to irregularities with their last name, such as a name change, hyphenation, or length, or having a firewall on their computer. If someone cannot log in using either method outlined above, please have them contact a Reference Librarian for assistance, either in person at the Reference Desk in the Library, by telephone at (262) 472-1032, or by email via AskaLibrarian/AskAway from this web page < http://library.uww.edu/askwi/askwi.html >.

Long URLs

Desire2Learn cannot handle long URLs and sometimes breaks them up, causing the links to be unusable. The way to solve this problem is to make the URL shorter.

One website that does this is http://tinyurl.com . How it Works: Enter a URL with the proxy server coding attached in the text field provided and click on the Make TinyURL! button. The free service then creates a very small URL that will not break into smaller sections and never expires.
For example: The 252 character https://libproxy.uww.edu:9443/login?url=http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:pqd&rft_val_fmt=ori:fmt:kev:mtx:journal&genre=article&rft_id=xri:pqd:did=000000388809101&svc_dat=xri:pqil:fmt=text&req_dat=xri:pqil:pq_clntid=3852transforms into the 23 character http://tinyurl.com/levf .

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eReserves

Course Reserves are located using the HALcat, the Andersen Library Catalog. These include both materials on reserve physically in the Library, such as books, videos and DVDs, and those that are on Electronic Reserve/eReserve, such as articles and book chapters, which may be read online or downloaded by students.

There are three ways to make it easier for your students to locate reserves:

  1. Link directly to an eReserve item from your courseware, ROAD account or personal webpage.
  2. Link to an individual catalog record, such as one listing all the eReserves for a course. Follow the directions in the Specific Title Records section.
  3. Link to a list of Course Reserves for one or more courses.

Link directly to an eReserve

  1. Start by selecting Reserves from the Find menu on any Andersen Library webpage, or clicking on Reserves on the left side of the Library homepage.
  2. When accessing from off-campus, enter your 7-digit UW-W ID number and last name when prompted.
  3. When in the Course Reserves section of the Catalog, select your name from the Instructor menu and your course number from the Course menu, and then click on the Search button. A list of what you have on reserve will appear.
  4. At the top of the list there will be a record with a title similar to A) Articles for Course 738 - Management of Technology (Electronic, Drago), which links to a list of the eReserves for the course. Books, videos and other materials physically on reserve are arranged alphabetically by the title below this record.
  5. Click on the A) Articles for... link. For each item available online, there will be a message in the E-Items field indicating the title of the item or a description of it, such as "Practice Test 1", "Notes for week 1," or . Click on the link for the item you want to open it using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  6. Copy and paste the PDFs URL into your courseware. Tips for getting the URL:
    • More recent versions of browsers like Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox show the URL in the box at the top of the browser window.
    • If the URL does not appear in the browser window, or if the document opens directly in Acrobat, return to the catalog record. Right click on the document link, and select Copy Shortcut or Copy Link Location.
  7. Add EZProxy coding and citation information, then format using HTML coding if needed.

Link to a List of Course Reserves

Follow these instructions as well as applicable specialized instructions in the save Specific Title Record(s) section. The instructions work best searches that return fewer than 100 titles (see Known Issues below).

  1. Start by selecting Reserves from the Find menu on any Andersen Library webpage, or clicking on Reserves on the left side of the Library homepage.
  2. When accessing from off-campus, enter your 7-digit UW-W ID number and last name when prompted.
  3. When in the Course Reserves section of the Catalog, select your name from the Instructor menu and your course number from the Course menu, and then click on the Search button. A list of what you have on reserve will appear.
  4. Once this search has been run, copy the URL from the Address/Location box at the top of the browser window.
  5. Add EZProxy coding and citation information, then format using HTML coding if needed.
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Canned Searches

Pre-constructed or "canned searches" in the catalog may be used to provide a dynamic link to a particular title or set of records. They may be used to:

  • Provide a short cut for students to your Course Reserves or eReserves
  • Shorten the length of a reading list, by providing a link to a catalog search instead of listing numerous titles, locations and call numbers
  • Pre-define specific types of information (such as, all chemistry periodicals in print in Andersen Library)

Self-Generated Searches

To generate usable URL by hand follow these instructions, as well as any specialized instructions in the save Specific Title Record(s) section. The instructions work best for Keyword searches constructed using the Advanced Search display that return fewer than 100 titles (see Known Issues below).

  1. To access the Advanced Search display in the Library Catalog, first click on Catalog on the left side of the Library homepage. Alternatively, select Books from the Find menu on any Library webpage, and then click on Harold Andersen Library Catalog.
  2. Click on the Advanced Search tab.
  3. Construct a search using the textboxes and menus, then click on the Search button.
  4. Once the search has been run, copy  the resulting URL from the textbox at the top of the browser window and paste it into your courseware.
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Known Issues

  • It is possible that the format of canned searches will change with the release of a new version of the catalog software.  It is important to periodically check that your searches continue to work properly. If they no longer work, refer back to this page to check for updates and contact a Reference Librarian regarding the problem in person at the Library's Reference Desk, by phone at 472-1032 or by email through Ask a Librarian.
  • When a canned search returns more than one page of results (the default is set at 50 titles), using the Next button could result in an error. Instead of the second page of results, the page returned has a results table, but no titles. To avoid this, change the &CNT=50 argument to &CNT100 and avoid using canned searches that bring up large numbers of results.
  • You may use Limits in a canned search (for example, to limit by item type or location ), although it may be problematic. If you wish to include Limits in your canned search, please consult a Reference Librarian and ask to see the list of limit codes in the WebVoyage manual.
  • If the search terms have colons, quotes, or spaces, you must replace them to ensure the URL works correctly.
    • Replace spaces with %20
    • Replace quotes with %22
    • Replace colons with %3A

    Following these rules, "Journal of Chemistry" would be %22Journal%20of%20Chemistry%22 in the URL.

Canned Records

Search Page

Specific Title Record(s)

  1. Perform a search by Exact Title in the catalog
  2. Click on an item title to display its record
  3. Copy the resulting URL from the textbox at the top of the browser window and paste it into your courseware.
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Book Record(s) by ISBN

This will only work for books published after 1969 which have been assigned an ISBN. For books published before 1969, and those which otherwise do not have an ISBN in the catalog, follow the Specific Title Record(s) directions above.

  1. Use if you know the ISBN of a book
  2. To access the Advanced Search display in the Library Catalog, first click on Catalog on the left side of the Library homepage. Alternatively, select Books from the Find menu on any Library webpage, and then click on Harold Andersen Library Catalog.
  3. Perform a Search by ISBN using the Advanced Search in HALcat
  4. Copy the resulting URL from the textbox at the top of the browser window and paste it into your courseware.

Serial (journal, magazine, newspaper, etc.) Record(s) by ISSN

  1. Use if you know the ISSN of a journal, magazine, newspaper or other serial
  2. To access the Advanced Search display in the Library Catalog, first click on Catalog on the left side of the Library homepage. Alternatively, select Books from the Find menu on any Library webpage, and then click on Harold Andersen Library Catalog.
  3. Perform a Search by ISSN using the Advanced Search in HALcat
  4. Copy the resulting URL from the textbox at the top of the browser window and paste it into your courseware.
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For assistance, contact a reference librarian at (262) 472-1032, by email or chat or in person at the Library's Reference Desk.

Last Revised: MS - 11/11/2009