[Yulpub] Current issues with InfoTrac Orbis links

[Kimberly Parker]

Gale has been attempting to improve the stability of the links to their 
databases and the fulltext in their aggregated products.  In the longterm, 
this will be a useful improvement.  In the short term, we have some 
unfortunate issues with failing links.

The below summarizes the current situation, as well as noting a(not so 
nice) workaround until the situation is fully corrected.

(1) The URLs for all Infotrac journals have now been corrected in the 
ejournals database.  Thus, any journals showing up in the web Online 
journals list from one of the Infotrac databases should not be failing (or 
at least not failing for this reason!)

(2) The URLs for the Infotrac journals in Orbis are all of the "older url 
version" variety.  Thus, until the next Serials Solutions load (hopefully 
in under a month), those links will continue to fail

UNLESS

(3) A user is using a workstation where someone has RECENTLY successfully 
used one of the working links from the ejournals list.  This is most 
relevant for General Reference Center Gold and Infotrac Onefile fulltext.

(4) Infotrac titles are filtered in the ejournals list and not in 
Orbis.  What this means in practical terms is that an Infotrac title 
available from other sources will not show up in the ejournals list, but 
will show up in Orbis.  Due to the inexact nature of this filtering, there 
may be holdings of interest (older years or more recent years) that are 
being filtered out of the ejournals list, and thus the Orbis record may be 
the only place to achieve a link to an Infotrac version of a title (and the 
Orbis links are failing - see (2) above)

(5) THERE IS a temporary solution to the Orbis situation.  If someone tells 
you that they are unable to connect to an Infotrac or General Reference 
Center Gold title from Orbis -- suggest that they go to the Online Journals 
webpage.  Have them use the title keyword search for "onefile".  Tell them 
to click on ANY one of the resulting titles.  AFTER DOING THAT, they can go 
into Orbis, find their title of interest, and the Orbis link should function.

(6) I have determined that at least in the Sterling Library Nave, if a 
workstation is rebooted, the "fix" is wiped away.  That is, every time the 
Nave computers are rebooted, someone will need to reconnect to a GenRefCen 
or Onefile title from the Online Journals list before the old Orbis links 
will function.

I could wish that we had better advance notice on some of the URL issues 
that arise, and certainly we've been giving our vendors an earful when 
things go wrong.

--Kim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kimberly Parker
Head, Electronic Collections
SML 207A
432-0067
mailto:kimberly.parker at yale.edu