Blogging Articles from MU Libraries Databases

Say you are discussing some political or social issue on your blog and you want to post a link to a news article. Or you're discussing a book or film and you want to post a link to a review other than the ones at amazon.com - one provided in our databases. Providing links is a good idea in many cases, and it's a good idea to use the library's articles when possible. Here are some things you should know.

1a. There is a right way that works, and a wrong way to post links to content provided in databases subscribed by the library. The wrong way is just to go to the article and try to cut and paste the URL, which is usually at least 3 miles long, into your blog. This process produces either links that don't work, or links that only work for a short while before suddenly and without warning ceasing to work. How fast that happens depends on how often the database updates its server/clears its cache. You have no control over that, and neither does the library. The process for the right way will be described below.

1b. Links to full text provided in places other than our databases sometimes go dead too, so if you're linking to stuff you find in Google News or the like, especially news articles, see if you can determine if you are linking to a permalink or to a temporary URL that will be dead after a few hours.

1c. If you link to full-text library database content, be aware that only MU students, faculty or staff will be able to follow the links, and they will be asked for their PawPrint. And even MU folks may be too pressed for time to follow the link, so it's a good idea to summarize your article's main point and/or provide a key quotation from it.

2. The right way to link to an online article involves finding a permalink (aka permanent URL) to the database item -- you do this after you've found the article you wish to link to in a database. The exact process of getting that all-important permalink to paste into your blog or any other web page is different from database to database. This chart shows which library databases "do" permalinks to articles and detail exactly how to get them. Sometimes you can't provide a link to the exact article, but you can provide a link to the part of the database covering the journal or newspaper containing the article. The chart was put together with electronic reserve in mind, but it works for blogging, too.