Linking from Pubmed

We are pleased to announce that Ovid LinkSolver customers are now being certified on Pubmed’s Outside Linking Tool. NLM issues a test that customers must pass before they are 'certified' to use Pubmed’s OpenURL linkng system. NLM does NOT certify vendors. Each institutional customer must be certified on their own.

Instructions and assistance are provided, but it is important that customers understand the 2 linking solutions from Pubmed and their choices and responsibilities. The Pubmed requirements are available here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=helplinkout.section.lib.PubMed_and_OpenURLba

NLM has 2 linking models available in Pubmed: Outside Linking Tool and LinkOut.

1. Outside Linking Tool: This tool is an OpenURL solution and requires that EVERY Pubmed citation link successfully to one of the following destinations:

- The full text record
- An OPAC library holding record for locating the print version
- A document delivery service where the user can request a copy of the article

Linking to Internal Doc Delivery Systems:

In many institutions, the first two (full text and OPAC) are readily available through Ovid’s Links Admin Tool. However, a critical requirement for institutions is the ability to send a link query to an INTERNAL document ordering system, by way of an email request.

Ovid's Doc Delivery link target functionality has been enhanced, and now allows linking to email-based internal document delivery systems.

LinkOut
- Next release of Links Admin Tool will have a global target export capability to facilitate creation of the XML file format required to feed LinkOut.

2. LinkOut: According to NLM:

“If your library can only provide qualified resources for a subset of PubMed records, you can implement your OpenURL-based service through LinkOut. To do this, you will need to submit two XML files to NCBI, either directly or through a third-party service you authorize.”

This solution requires that customers have to identify their holdings and maintain them by submitting XML files to NLM when setting up LinkOut. It is possible to create such a file through LinkSolver’s Admin tool by exporting targets and combining them in Excel or some utility that supports XML formatting.

Ovid's Commitment

Ovid is committed to supporting both NLM implementations of linking, and will work with customers to ensure that they are informed of their choices and the implications of each. Ovid Technical Support will work with customers to advise them of the two Pubmed linking solutions: