Display full-text links and elevate links from a specific provider (Fundamentals)
Note: If you are a WMS library or using full WorldShare Collection Manager, see Display full-text links and elevate links from a specific provider.
About full-text links
Collection Manager Fundamentals and the central index data along with your library holdings make full-text linking possible. Add your knowledge base collection data in Collection Manager Fundamentals to connect patrons to full-text.
If multiple titles across different collections have identical URLs and coverage information, then the knowledge base will de-duplicate these links and will randomly choose one of the links to display in WorldCat Discovery.
Note: A limit of 50 WorldCat knowledge base links are returned in the Access Online section of WorldCat Discovery.
Items without OCLC numbers and links in WorldCat Discovery
Items you have turned on in the knowledge base in Collection Manager that do not have OCLC numbers will still surface in WorldCat Discovery. An OCLC number is required to output a MARC record and to set holdings in WorldCat. If an item does not have a holding in WorldCat and is not treated as held, this will influence how and where a title surfaces in search results in WorldCat Discovery.
Links will surface for items without OCLC numbers, but because holdings in WorldCat are not set, items might not be marked as held by your library. However, knowledge base titles with associated article citations in the central index will show as held by your library based upon ISSNs; Your library can opt to use full text coverage from the knowledge base to determine whether or not an article is held by your library.
- When you perform a search, altering the scoping level (Libraries Worldwide, Your Library) and sort options (Best Match, Recency, Library, Most Widely Held, and so forth) can change how high up an item surfaces in Discovery search results because these options factor in held status.
Full-text link display names
In WorldCat Discovery, a button label will display to indicate full-text is available from the knowledge base. The button label is dependent on the format of the link.
See Full-text link display in WorldCat Discovery, Full-text link display names for a list of WorldCat knowledge base formats and the associated display names such as View eBook, View Now, and so forth.
How to display full-text links
In WorldShare Collection Manager Fundamentals:
Add knowledge base collections
- Choose a method to add or create a knowledge base collection to represent your e-resource titles in the WorldShare Collection Manager Fundamentals interface.
- Make sure to enter your coverage information. See KBART values and formatting for information on how to represent coverage information.
Configure institution settings
If you haven't already, configure institution settings and set holdings in WorldCat via the WorldShare Collection Manager Fundamentals interface. See Configure institution settings for knowledge base collections.
Required conditions for a full-text link to appear for a title
- Full-text links will only appear for the following format types:
- Journal (with a coverage value of Full Text)
- e-Book
- Audio, Image, and Video formats
- Links will not display in WorldCat Discovery or in the A to Z list for the following formats:
- Selected Full Text
- Abstracts
- Indexed
- Data in the knowledge base must align with the WorldCat record. For example:
- The format type in the WorldCat record must match the format type of the title in the knowledge base
- The date range in the collection must fall inside the date range in the WorldCat record
Report a missing or broken link
See Report errant knowledge base links.
In OCLC Service Configuration:
Configure your databases
If you haven't selected the databases that will be available to search in your library's WorldCat Discovery interface, sign in to OCLC Service Configuration and add your databases. Include WorldCat.org in content searched by default.
Enable full-text links
- Sign in to OCLC Service Configuration.
- Navigate to the WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Full Text and Open Access Links.
- Check Links from the WorldCat knowledge base to full text content. This will automatically select the settings for links to appear on the detailed record and on the brief record on the search results page. If for some reason you do not want links in search results, adjust the Search Results setting.
Create a link to your A to Z list
Optional. Every WorldCat Discovery library has an A-Z list, a patron-facing page that makes it possible to search the knowledge base titles you have represented in Collection Manager Fundamentals.
To create a link to your institution's A-Z list for WorldCat Discovery:
- Sign in to OCLC Service Configuration: https://worldcat.org/config
- Navigate to WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > A - Z List and OCLC Link Resolver.
- Find your Base URL. This is the link URL for your A-Z list. An example URL is: http://86474.on.worldcat.org/atoztitles
- Copy your Base URL.
- Navigate to WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > User Interface Options.
- In the Custom Links section:
- Select other as the custom link type and specify your display text.
- Paste the URL for your A-Z list.
Find more information about the A - Z List and OCLC Link Resolver.
Display public notes in your A to Z list
- Add public notes in knowledge base collections
- License Manager libraries can create a template to manage collection-level notes in an automated way.
Test your links
After you enable the option in OCLC Service Configuration to enable full-text links, links will appear in your WorldCat Discovery interface. See Full-text link display in WorldCat Discovery for information about how and where your links will display.
To test your links:
- Open a browser and go to your library's WorldCat Discovery URL.
- Perform a search for an item you know is in your WorldCat knowledge base (that you added or selected in Collection Manager Fundamentals).
- Click the link to test it and see if you can view the full-text item.
Other options
Enable the "Report a broken link" form
To enable the "Report a broken link" form in your Discovery interface and see how to use it, see Full-text link display in WorldCat Discovery.
Add, edit or delete grouped OCNs
See Grouped OCLC Numbers in Title-level settings in knowledge base collections.