Library Guides @ VIU: DOI: Digital Object Identifiers: How do I change a DOI into a permanent link?

Why make a permanent link?

Permanent links are stable and usable over time. It's important to create them to create access to electronic resources. .

Simply copy-pasting the Web addresses, or uniform resource locators (URL), won't work to create a link to electronic resources:

Clicking on a copy-pasted link won't get you to a resource if you're on campus or if you're not logged in to VIU's electronic collection.
Web pages can be altered due to maintenance, or removed from servers, rendering a copy-pasted link useless.

Create a permanent link if:

You are a student creating a link to an electronic resource in a web-based project, like a website, or in a discussion forum in an online course.
You are a faculty member creating a link to an electronically accessible course reading. A link such as this could be placed in your course website.

From DOI to Permanent link: Three Parts

Here is a full example of a DOI that has been rendered into a stable, permanent link that allows for proxy access. What you would make would look similar to this:

http://ezproxy.viu.ca/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474011428098

What's proxy access? This means that a member of the VIU community (student, faculty, or staff) can access an electronic resource from on or off campus. You get to the electronic resource through the VIU Library's proxy server, so long as you have an active student/faculty ID and Library PIN.

This full, permanent link, which includes the DOI, is made up of three parts:

Part 1: the VIU proxy server information

http://ezproxy.viu.ca/login?url=

The VIU proxy server information part of the link is the same for any resource in the VIU collection.

Part 2: the DOI prefix information

http://dx.doi.org/

The DOI prefix information part of the link is also the same for any resource in the VIU collection that has a DOI.

Part 3: the DOI itself

10.1177/1474474011428098

Enter the particular DOI of the resource you want to link.

Stable Links to Online Access

Stable Links: This is a VIU Library guide that provides you help in making permanent links of materials from various databases. It also provides help on making permanent links to resources in D2L online courses.