Find It @ Stanford: New Linking Service for the Stanford Community

by Sue-Ellen Johnson

You may have noticed a button next to your citation results while searching databases from the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources' (SULAIR) web site. This button is your link between citations in databases to the full text of journal articles and much more! SULAIR subscribes to many databases and thousands of electronic journals. Many databases provide only bibliographic citations, such as title and author, and not the complete article. Find It @ Stanford is a comprehensive linking solution that uses the Open URL standard to take users directly from a citation in a database to any available online full text. It also provides a link to Socrates (Stanford's catalog) and other library catalogs, supports citation downloads, and links to other relevant services.

How Do I Use It?

Simply start a search in one of the databases you normally use, e.g., Academic Search Premier or Sociological Abstracts. SULAIR keeps an up-to-date listing of Find It @ Stanford FAQ page.

When you see a , click on it. This will open a window with a menu of service options (Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: Example of the
Find It @ Stanford menu. Click for
full-size version.

From there you can get to any of the service options listed on the menu, including those listed under More options. From the menu, click on Go for the full text option and you are taken directly to the full text of the article (in this case a PDF). See Figure 2 below.

You will not lose the result list from your original search when you click on .

Two new windows will be opened. The first will contain the list of find it services (Figure 1) and the second window will open when you select one of these services (Figure 2).

Figure 2, showing an example of full text of an article

Figure 2: Example of the full text of
an article. Click for full-size version.

In the menu example, Figure 3, you will note that since full text is not available though a direct link, you will see Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery as a service under More Options.

Figure 3 showing the list of options if full text article not available

Figure 3: List of options if full text
article is not available. Click for
full-size version.

How Does It Work?

Using the Open URL metadata standard, Find It @ Stanford takes the information, or metadata, from your citation and then it uses this metadata to locate additional information in other electronic resources as well as defined library services. When you click on , a menu screen appears with a list of appropriate services. The services are context sensitive so not all services will display each time you are presented with a menu. For example, if full text is available, there will not be a link to interlibrary loan/document delivery.

Where Can I Get Help?

You can request help by clicking on the Contact Us link in the Find It @ Stanford menu.

Tell Me More About the Technology Behind Find It @Stanford

Find it @ Stanford is based on SFX (an acronym for "Special Effects") technology that Stanford has licensed from Ex Libris (USA) Inc. For more information about SFX, see their web site.