Gold Rush® Linker FAQ

What is Gold Rush® Linker?

Gold Rush Linker is a reference linking tool that is compliant with NISO versions 1.0 and 0.1. It will receive and respond to OpenURL 1.0 and 0.1 compliant queries, providing links to Gold Rush resources held by your library. In addition, if it has recieved enough information from the query, Gold Rush Linker can send a query to CrossRef, providing your patrons with a DOI compliant link to the full text provided by the publisher.

Is Gold Rush® Linker OpenURL compliant?

Yes, Gold Rush Linker is compliant with NISO versions 1.0 and 0.1 of the OpenURL standard.

Does Gold Rush® Linker work with CrossRef?

Yes, Gold Rush Linker does work with CrossRef, provided your site has a valid Crossref username and password, and provided your copy of Gold Rush Linker is configured to use CrossRef. If both of these conditions are met, and if Gold Rush Linker does not recieve a DOI in a request, Gold Rush Linker will then call CrossRef in an attempt to find a DOI for the current citation.  If a DOI is received from CrossRef and if your library subscribes to that particuclar journal (through proper configuration of your holdings in Gold Rush), then the Gold Rush Linker results screen will provide a link back to the publisher-based full-text of an article.

Why does Gold Rush® Linker sometimes fail to display any information at the top of the screen where the citation normally displays?

Gold Rush Linker builds it's display based on the information it receives from an incoming OpenURL HTTP request. Gold Rush Linker can only display as much information as it recieves in the request. So, if the system you're coming from does not provide a particular piece of information, Gold Rush Linker won't have that information either. For example, if the originating system does not include an author's name, Gold Rush Linker won't be able to display an author in the citation.

Why doesn't Gold Rush® Linker provide a link to service X?

Gold Rush Linker can provide links to a number of different resources.  We have configured about a dozen targets, ahead of time, for your convenience.  However, you must select these targets and enable them to make them active for your site.

Gold Rush also supports the ability to build your own targets to virtually any electronic resource.  The Gold Rush Staff Toolbox provides a powerful toolkit of features to enable a subscribing library to build outbound links to most publishes, databases or services.  In addition to being able to build your own targets to send queries into remote systems, a site can also send bibliographic metadata into Web-based forms to support interlibrary loan (e.g. OCLC Illiad, Clio, WebZap) or commercial document delivery services.

Does Gold Rush® Linker provide article-level links?

Yes, Gold Rush Linker can create article-level links into services which provide full text, interlibrary loan, and document delivery. Article level links are preconfigured for a variety of services.  However, Gold Rush has a toolkit that will allow a libary to create outbound article links to virtually any target using OpenURL variables.
Please see Gold Rush documentation for the details.

When do article-level links show up in Gold Rush® Linker?

A number of conditions have to be met before Gold Rush Linker can produce article-level links. First, the resource in question must be included in your library's full-text holdings in the Gold Rush database. Second, the link you clicked on to access Gold Rush Linker must have included enough information to produce a useful article-level link. Which pieces of information are necessary depends on the service, but ISSN, Volume, Issue, and starting page number are often required. Some services also require the date or other information. Finally, your site has to be configured to display article-level links. Gold Rush Linker configuration allows your library to select the services you want linked on an individual basis.

Why do article level links sometimes fail?

Article level links provided by Gold Rush Linker will sometimes fail for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, the system that provided the link to Gold Rush Linker included incorrect or corrupt data. Since Gold Rush Linker uses the data it receives to build links, if that data is bad, the links may be bad as well.

Another reason that article level links can fail is incomplete or incorrect configuration. In order to make article level links work, your librarians have to do a lot of work configuring the services that provide links to Gold Rush Linker, configuring Gold Rush Linker itself, configuring the database service the article level link points to, and often, configuring the library's proxy server or authentication server. If this work has not been done, or has been done incorrectly, article level links may fail.

Finally, good article level links require at least three systems to be available and working.

    the system which provides the link to Gold Rush Linker
    Gold Rush Linker itself
    the system that the article level link points to
    a proxy server or authentication server (in some cases)

If any one of these systems is experiencing temporary outages or other problems, article level links may fail.

Does Gold Rush® Linker help me find items other than articles and journals, like books or conference proceedings?

Gold Rush Linker was primarily built to locate the full text of articles in serial publications. OpenURL genre types other than "article" or "journal" will produce links to resources appropriate for that genre.  As such, Gold Rush can act as a bridge between a source and many different targets.

How do I configure Gold Rush® Linker for my library?

Gold Rush Linker configuration is handled in the Gold Rush Staff Toolbox. So, begin by pointing your browser to your Gold Rush Staff Toolbox, click on the "Settings" button, then click on the "Manage Gold Rush Linker" menu item.

For detailed instructions on managing your Gold Rush Linker configuration,please see the Gold Rush Linker documentation.

Can I configure my Gold Rush® Linker results screen?

Yes, Gold Rush offers libraries almost complete control over their Gold Rush Linker results screens. You can access the HTML and cascading stylesheets to control the look and feel of the output.