Hello! I'm a new subscriber to this list and look forward to learning
more about law librarianship and legal materials.
Our library subscribes to Westlaw Campus Research. Apologies if this
has already been discussed.
I called Westlaw Campus Research Tech Support and asked them whether
persistent or stable urls are available for individual resources (e.g.
American Jurisprudence 2d) within Campus Research or if instructions are
available on how to create such urls for individual sources
publications.
The person I spoke with in Tech Support said her manager told her that
the only way to access specific resources directly would be for them to
create a special web page for us. I asked her if this would cost
anything but she didn't know.
Campus Research is a wonderful product with many valuable resources.
Unfortunately, content is often buried under layers of clicks and
library patrons may not even be aware that specific sources are
included within the database.
What we try to do for specific resources which we know our users would
want to access, is to actually create a record in our library catalog
for the resource.
For example, we would create a cataloging record for American
Jurisprudence 2d, but instead of a call no. we would include a direct,
persistent url which our patrons would click on directly from the
cataloging record to go right to the screen within Campus Research to
allow them to ONLY search that publication.
We do this already with selected specific resources within Lexis-Nexis
Academic.
This would increase use of the database and make its content more
visible to library users.
I'm puzzled by the apparent lack of persistent urls as virtually every
other database vendor we have provides such urls - often not only for
source publications but even for specific articles (e.g. journal
articles) as well. This includes Lexis-Nexis Academic, which is a
related database we also subscribe to.
I'm also puzzled by why, when we click on link to Campus Research, we
are brought to a terms of agreement screen which we have to click on ok
and then go, before we can get to the initial search screen for the
database. No other database vendor requires users to click on a terms
of service agreement screen. We had asked if we could be brought
directly to the initial search page in the database but were told "no".
I asked them if they would pass along my e-mail as feedback to
executives at Thomson Reuters or whoever is in a policymaking position
who could allow persistent urls and bypassing of the terms of agreement
screen.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Adrienne Franco
Reference & Instructional Services Librarian
Iona College Libraries
715 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801-1890
(914) 633-2348
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