Dear Daniel,
It wasn't that complicated when I set up our PubMed LinkOut!
For more info:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/liblinkout.html
Kind regards,
Richard Sherratt
Electronic Resources Coordinator
Knowledge & Library Service,
Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
Warrington Hospital,
Education & Research Division,
Education Centre, Thelwall House,
Lovely Lane, Warrington, WA5 1QG.
External telephone: 01925 66 2128
Internal telephone: 5642
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From: Croft Daniel (RBF) NOC [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 02 December 2009 14:11
Subject: PubMed LinkOut
Dear LIS-MEDICAL,
Last week I emailed the list to ask if anyone wanted any information on
signing up to the PubMed LinkOut service. A lot of people have responded
so I have written a short description of the process I went through to
get my library signed up to the service. Please note that I do not claim
this to be a comprehensive guide to accessing PubMed and that I am no
expert on it! However, I had to work a lot of these things out for
myself so hopefully others will find the process a bit quicker and
slightly easier with this everyday-language description of the process
we went through.
PubMed LinkOut
Please note this not a comprehensive guide to accessing the PubMed
service. A reasonable level of IT skill and a working knowledge of
WorldCat LinkResolver is assumed.
You need 2 xml files - a providerinfo.xml file and a pubmedlinkout.xml
file. I had never dealt with xml files before but they are quite easy.
An important note about editing xml files: saving an xml file with a
.txt ending makes it a text file that you can edit in notepad. Then by
resaving that .txt file with an .xml ending turns it back into an xml
file with your changes included.
The providerinfo file is very short and you can just copy an example
from the PubMed help files
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/liblinkout.html> and
then enter your info (editing in notepad as mentioned above then save as
providerinfo.xml). Here is a template and below that is our
providerinfo:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE Provider PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN"
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/LinkOut.dtd">
<Provider>
<ProviderId>given by PubMed so leave blank</ProviderId>
<Name>your library/service name here</Name>
<NameAbbr> given by PubMed so leave blank</NameAbbr>
<SubjectType>Libraries</SubjectType>
<Url>your WorldCat URL here</Url>
</Provider>
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE Provider PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN"
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/LinkOut.dtd">
<Provider>
<ProviderId>7943</ProviderId>
<Name>Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Library</Name>
<NameAbbr>igbnoclib</NameAbbr>
<SubjectType>Libraries</SubjectType>
<Url>http://nhs4223522.resolver.library.nhs.uk/</Url>
</Provider>
The pubmedlinkout file is much longer and more complicated because it
details your holdings but handily WorldCat have a prepared one for you
which you can download from the 'Title List Admin' bit of WorldCat. Open
the file and check to see that the IconUrl line ends in .gif, .png or
.jpg.- like this one does:
<IconUrl>http://images.lm.worldcat.org/images/btn_worldcatlink_link.gif<
/IconUrl>
If it doesn't you will need to contact WorldCat and ask them to change
it for you. When they have done that you will need to re-download the
file.
You send these two files (providerinfo.xml and pubmedlinkout.xml) off to
PubMed <mailto:[log in to unmask]> who will check them then, if
they are ok, will email you back with a NameAbbr and ProviderID to add
to your providerinfo.xml file. You make the changes then send the files
back, they check it again, and email you to ask you to upload the file
to an ftp drive.
Again, I had never used (or even heard of) ftp before but its quite
straight forward. Ftp is a weird thing where you go to an online address
using a web browser but instead of it being like a normal website it
actually appears more like a folder on a computer that you keep files
in. Using Internet Explorer (only some browsers are compatible with ftp
and Internet Explorer is one of them) you go to an address they give
you, login with the details they give you (by right clicking the mouse
and selecting 'Login As...') and then uploading your files just as you
would into any other folder - copy and paste or drag them across. Then
close the window down. You email PubMed to let them know you've done it
and then after a while they email to say that you've been added to the
LinkOut service and that after 48 hours the filters will be usable.
THEN you need to sign up for a PubMed account
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/register/> . In the
Preferences section of your new account choose 'PubMed filters and
icons', click 'Search for Filters' and search for the name of your
library. Tick both boxes to add the filter to this account. Please note
that there might be other filters that would be useful to you/your users
and that you could put on this account - for example I have also added
Core Content (called 'NHS core content') and the filter created by
Oxford University because some of our users have access to their
resources.
Now the good bit. You, and more particularly your users, want to access
these filters without having to log on to the account. To do that click
Preferences again, click 'Shared Settings' and tick all those boxes. Now
log out of your account. Copy this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?myncbishare=username
into your address bar and change username to the username of the account
you just created. Hit enter and this will take you to the front page of
PubMed - bookmark this page! This is now PubMed but with the filter
options of the account you created. So now, when you use this link to
PubMed, you can search for articles and see instantly if they are
accessible either online or, if you've added the info to WorldCat, in
print from your library. You can now forward this URL to your clinicians
so they can access articles easier and quicker.
Kind regards,
Daniel Croft
Librarian
Tel & Fax: (01865) 738147
[log in to unmask]
Girdlestone Memorial Library, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Windmill
Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7LD
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