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External Lookups

External origins send a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) meta tag in OpenURLs that can be resolved by the CrossRef external lookup service (or other external lookup services). In some cases, the OpenURL coming from a particular vendor may not be robust enough to resolve the user directly to the full text article, as the OpenURL may be missing critical elements, such as Start Page, Issue number, etc. In these cases, a third party can identify the citation by its DOI, build a complete OpenURL, then pass that to WebBridge LR, resulting in a more reliable link resolution to the full text article.

Adding External Lookups

In WebBridge LR, to create an External Lookup, you need two pieces of data: 1) the URL from the External Lookup provider, usually CrossRef, 2) and the External Lookup code, referring to which mapping file WebBridge LR uses. Both are available on the WebBridge wiki. Once the library has registered with CrossRef, copy the CrossRef URL from the WebBridge wiki, and replace the ID and Password in that URL with the account information sent to you from CrossRef.

To enable the External Lookup for a particular origin:

  • Create the External Lookup (if not already created)
  • Edit the Origin definition.
  • Tick the 'Do External Lookup' checkbox.
  • Select the desired External Lookup to use with this Origin, and Save.

This Origin will then use the specified External Lookup to create more robust OpenURLs when a user clicks the WebBridge LR button from within that Origin's search result sets.