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Michigan State University

Stable Links for Electronic Resources

This is a how-to guide for creating permanent, stable links to MSU-owned full-text articles from online journals, e-books, and streaming video or other media.

Licensing Restrictions: Stable Links Don't Provide Full-Text or Cannot Be Shared in Course Content

To comply with copyright and meet licensing agreements, you must use the appropriate stable link to share article-level content from e-journals or databases. Do not upload the PDF of a journal article into D2L or other course-related materials. 

However, some e-journal publishers do not allow full-text access to articles using stable links, or sharing a stable link in a learning management system (i.e., D2L) or via other course-related materials may be prohibited. If you encounter an e-journal platform that does not allow use of stable links for integrating into your course content, you will need to access the article using the library's online catalog. 

For example, you may see the message below (or something similar) when attempting to use a stable link that doesn't allow full-text access or sharing in course content (see images below):

 

 

Providing "Stable Links" when Stable Links Don't Allow Access

  1. If a stable link to an e-journal article does not allow full-text access or is prohibited from sharing in your course, you will need to use the Permalink.
  2. Locate the article in the e-journal using the Articles option (https://lib.msu.edu/) or the E-Journals page (https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/eresources/ejournals).
  3. Navigate to the year/volume/issue/article desired and look for a Share option. 
  4. Click the "Create link" option and use this Permalink as your stable link.  Students can then click on PDF Full Text (or similar) to access the desired article.

https://research-ebsco-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/linkprocessor/plink?id=588cb8e5-1760-345c-9d73-fdad105057f5