ERM Troubleshooting Tips & Tricks

Bad linking for ebook or journal:

When linking for an ebook or journal are reported, there are several steps that can be done.

• Check the linking (parser parameter of the item)

  • Is the link up-to-date?

    • Is the jkey or bkey correct?

      • Look up journal or ebook on the publishers site.

      • If the bkey or jkey do not match what is in Alma, update the portfolio linking and report to ExL Support.

    • Is the book or journal available in Google Scholar? (This is good for finding OA book or journal URLs)

      • Could be that the ebook or journal are now available from a different publisher.

        • Report the portfolio to ExL Support and remove the portfolio.

        • If the item is available from a new publisher and is not in Alma, add the portfolio, add the new link to the correct collection and report it to ExL Support.

    • Example: Harm reduction [electronic resource] : pragmatic strategies for managing high-risk behaviors / edited by G. Alan Marlatt, Mary E. Larimer, Katie Witkiewitz. 

      JSTOR Public Health (Research Reports Only): Full Text

      Portfolio ID: 53721374740002901

      • The title is no longer available from JSTOR, could not locate the title in JSTOR.

      • Looked in Google Scholar and it appears the item may be available from a different provider, no records appear for JSTOR.

      • Reported the portfolio to ExL support and removed the portfolio.

Ahead-of-Print/In Press articles:

Example: Imposter phenomenon and experiences of discrimination among students at a predominantly White institution

When there are articles that are Ahead-of-Print or “In Press,” and the full text is not available, a Public Note should be added to the portfolio stating that articles labeled Ahead-of-Print are not available. There is currently no functionality in Alma or PrimoVE that will suppress the link to full text. Ex Libris has plans to add functionality in the second half of 2024 but there are no specifics available yet.

Open

Example of Ahead of Print article: no full text available

Adjusting coverage for gap year:

Example: The Journal of Gerontological Nursing as hosted by Gale (present in General, Academic, and Health and Medicine Onefile, and Health and Wellness) has a coverage exception for the year 2020, which is not reflected in the availability dates in Alma.

*Gale is known to have gaps in coverage that is not reported in the files they send to Ex Libris.

Make local changes and report to Ex Libris Support. Watch for future Alma weekly updates for changes to the global coverage dates. Local date can be removed after global update.

Open

Coverage for Gale portfolios updated to accommodate coverage exception

Adding public notes for different volume numbers:

This usually happens with ebooks or reference materials, there are multiple volumes for the title. Ex Libris does not include the volume number in the description so it appears to the user that there are multiple links for the same item. In reality, the link is going to a different volume, each portfolio with a unique link. Solution: This means clicking on each full text link in PrimoVE (OneSearch) to locate the volume number and then add that number to the Public Note in Alma.

Example records:

• Encyclopedia of philosophy / Donald M. Borchert, editor in chief. Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit 2005 [0-02-866072-2]

• American Governance Macmillan Reference USA Farmington Hills, MI 2016 [1-4103-3904-1]
  
  

DOI Error Message:

When the “DOI not found” message appears, this usually means the DOI has not been registered for the article. The DOI issue can be reported at DOI.org or CrossRef.org. CrossRef Support appears on the vendor contact page.

FYI: CrossRef is a good source for finding which publisher “owns” the DOI and article. If a record in PrimoVE (OneSearch) has incorrect metadata and there is a DOI available, searching CrossRef will display the metadata the publisher has indexed. This can be used to report metadata issues to Ex Libris Support.

Unable to access e-book from JSTOR EBA or ProQuest Ebook Central:

In most cases, when a user see the message that the library does not have access to the ebook from either JSTOR EBA or ProQuest Ebook Central, it means that the e-book is no longer available from the vendor or the ebook is not included in the CSU subscription. ProQuest does not send separate files to Ex Libris Content, for Ebook Central, so the collection include ebooks the CSU may not be able to access. Report the ebook to Jessica Hartwigsen, requesting the ebook be removed.

ProQuest Ebook Central: "Sorry, this book is not available. Please contact your librarian about purchasing it, or search for another book." This message usually means that this ebook is not included in the subscription due to territorial reasons (only available outside the U.S. territory).

JSTOR EBA: There can be a delay in JSTOR sending the latest file for JSTOR EBA to Ex Libris. E-books appear in PrimoVE (OneSearch) when the e-book is no longer available. Report the e-book requesting it be removed.

FYI: Each library should receive a list of e-books, from JSTOR, that the library has selected. These are owned by the individual library and should be activated locally in the IZ.

CDI - Settings and configurations to check before opening ExL Support Case:

• CDI in the Network Zone can be updated by the library CDI liaison, using the NZ CDI.

  • Update CDI settings/activations

• Ex Libris has a useful Tips and Tricks document that helps troubleshoot where links are originating, see what records are in a CDI collection, and the source of the CDI record.

• If the CDI collection(s) require link configuration or proxy, check the settings in the Discovery module:

• After troubleshooting the settings, the configurations, analysis and the link still does not work, open an ExL SalesForce case.

• Example below: The CDI link for Gale is has a bad link (sid=summon&u=xxxx) since the sid should be “primo” and the “u=” should be the Gale ID for the library. In this case, the same library ID is being applied to all libraries, causing a linking issue.

CDI Inheritance:

If your library sees this message: "This institution is not inheriting Network Zone CDI activations,” this indicates that the library is not inheriting CDI Databases (zero-title collections) from the Network Zone. All libraries are inheriting CDI collections that have portfolios. CDI settings can be updated in both the IZ and NZ. There is a CDI login for the Network Zone that will allow the CDI liaison to update settings for the library.

CDI Tips and Tricks: The Ex Libris Tips and Tricks page is good for troubleshooting records that originate from CDI.

CDI/Alma Availability -coverage date:

There is an important note in the Publishing to CDI page, when CDI checks for holdings in Alma, it looks at the year/month/day, but is not looking at the year/volume/issue, which can lead to linking issues or missing full text links in PrimoVE. Solution: Add year/month/day to portfolio when linking issue arises.

Example: Link to Gale did not initially appear. The coverage needed to be updated to include month/day as well as volume/issue. After a local coverage was added to the portfolio, the link to Gale appeared.

For portfolio coverage information from Alma, only the From/Until Year, Month and Day fields (not the Volume and Issue fields) are used for CDI availability calculation.

CDI Activation Analysis - Missing CDI links or CDI links that should not appear:

Example: Link to Gale was appearing but the library does not have access to that particular article, it is not included in the subscription. Where is the full text link coming from?

Use Activation Analysis tool to check if the full text link should be available and where the full text link may have originated. The tool is easy to set up and use. The results state there is full text but doesn’t mean that you will see a full text link for every resource listed. It gives you a place to start adjusting CDI settings. Can take up to 48hrs for changes to be reflected in PrimoVE/OneSearch.

Second scenario: If a full text link is missing, the tool can let you know where the full text is available and CDI settings can be adjusted so the full text will appear.

CDI settings can be updated in both the IZ and NZ. There is a CDI login for the Network Zone that will allow the CDI liaison to update settings for the library.

Sample record (screenshots below for example record):

Quicklink Issues:

The PDF and Read Online link were initially going to Emerald instead of ProQuest Ebook Central. Ex Libris Support suggested setting the Link Prioritization for the Quicklinks. Report issues with Quicklinks to Ex Libris Support.

• The PDF is being proxied (when it shouldn’t be) or not proxied (when it should).

• Quicklink is going to incorrect publisher

• Quicklink is not working - broken link

Springer Nature Debug links:

Springer has provided two debug links to test access and linking issues for both Springer and Nature.

Open a case with with Springer if there are issues with access journals or articles:

If you are still experiencing this problem, and have not already done so, please provide us with a hyperlink to the content you cannot access along with a screenshot of the results of clicking on the appropriate debug link below.

The debug results will give us the information needed to determine if the cause of the issue is your access setup.

Springer Content: https://idp.springer.com/debug

Nature Content: https://idp.nature.com/debug

Cloudflare IP Whitelist:

This was posted to the EZProxy listserv and this is the current list of vendors to contact if there are EZProxy access issues, the library may have to register their IP ranges on the vendor’s whitelist.

      My institution will have an EZproxy server IP address change.  I remember (may not be accurate) sending our EZproxy IP address to some publishers/vendors listed below to whitelist.   Are there any other vendors/publishers?

• American Physical Society

• IEEE

• ProQuest

• Sage

• Tayor & Francis

• Wiley