LINKING TO FULL TEXT (AND BEYOND) WITH SFX

The University of Chicago Library is committed to providing its academic research and education community with a diverse collection of print and, increasingly, electronic resources. The electronic collections are remarkable not only for the amount of information available (more than 4,000 electronic journals in the sciences alone), but also for the astounding (and confusing) variety of publisher search interfaces, schemes for content organization, and navigational routes to the content. In an effort to provide users with a more intuitive and consistent way to identify means to retrieve content, regardless of format or source, the Library implemented an SFX server solution.

SFX (from ExLibris) is a linking technology based on the OpenURL protocol (currently under development as a NISO standard) for creating customized links among diverse information products. The University of Chicago Library implementation of SFX to provide better management of electronic resources and improved service to the scholarly community is described.

The Library defined its electronic collection, and constructed rules to guide SFX in creating context-sensitive links. These customized, context-sensitive links use web-transportable packages of metadata to connect users to resources and services. Links to resources are dynamically generated to provide information about all available online copies. In addition, SFX services have been configured to include links to online full text, as well as searches of the University of Chicago Library’s rich print collections and additional services, including automated interlibrary loan request generation.

Recent and future developments described include an OpenURL generator/DOI resolver tool, a dynamically generated comprehensive online journal A to Z list, and additional SFX services.