Durable urls for articles: using HOLLIS+

File under department of the obvious, but I just realized that HOLLIS+ makes it easy to find and maintain durable urls for articles! The HOLLIS+ record for the article will have a link to a current online subscription in the "View Online" tab.

A possible snag would be if our data sources change (i.e. MLA Bibliography alters its records in a way that the HOLLIS+ link will no longer go to a record for that particular article...)

Anyway, here's an explanation I recently sent to a prof looking for durable urls for a course website, with explanatory screenshot:

Hollis+ solves the problem of stable urls. For almost all of our subscriptions, there will be a "View Online" tab in the Hollis+ record for the article. If there's no "View Online," it's fairly safe to assume we do not have online access to that particular article, though do of course feel free to send me citations to verify that.

If you're working from full citations, the simplest way to locate HOLLIS+ records is to copy and paste the article title in to the basic search box. (On the Hollis & Articles tab or the Articles tab.)

In many cases there will be multiple records for the same article: when that happens, look first at the citation details, and second at the source. So long as there is a full and correct citation Hollis+ should be able to connect to the appropriate full-text database, but it's nice to choose a record from a trusted source: you can find that information at the bottom of the "details" tab. Choose the publisher or organization that you consider most stable and relevant to your field (e.g. MLA Bibliography, Project Muse, PubMed, etc).

To get the link for a particular Hollis+ record, go to the "details" tab, then select "Link to record" from the "Send To" menu on the right (see the attached screenshot). That should open a pop-up window with the url.