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360 KB: Gale: Linking Issues

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  • Product: Alma, Primo, Summon, 360 KB, SFX
  • Product Version: all
  • Relevant for Installation Type: all

Gale Linking - Context, Issues, Troubleshooting, and Suggestions

Location ID (LocID) - the backbone of Gale linking

The Location ID (or LocID, LOCID) is how Gale recognizes your account, like a username. It facilitates authentication and linking to Gale's products, and is used in URLs to Gale products.

Why is the correct Location ID critical?

Configuring Ex Libris products to use your Location ID when building or using links to Gale's platform is critical. Without the correct Location ID for your institution, links may lead end users to the wrong page or to errors.

Confirming that you have the correct Location ID, and have it configured correctly across Gale products, should be the first step in troubleshooting any Gale linking issue.

How to get your institution's LocID

To obtain your institution's Location ID, contact your Gale Customer Success Manager.

Configuring Ex Libris products to use your Location ID

 

Primo

For information on how to configure your Location ID in Primo for certain "link in record" (direct) Gale collections (such as Gale Digital Collections and archival content) see: Special links configuration in CDI for Primo and Primo VE.

Summon

For information on configuring your Location ID in Summon for direct links, see: Summon and 360 Link: Index-Enhanced Direct Linking Special Providers.

 

Gale linking issues

Links may not work for a variety of reasons.

First of all, confirm that you have the correct Location ID configured correctly across your products, and make sure that the link you are trying has the correct Location ID included. If not, fix issues with your Location ID before testing further - see above.

Other causes and potential solutions to linking issues can be found below. If your situation is not included below, please file a case through the Support Portal.

I click on a link in a Primo/CDI record for one Gale product, but the link sends me to another Gale product - why?

CDI directly maps the correct product for the record as it is ingested into the index. However, link resolver linking matches this result against all of your activated/selected Gale products and titles, and may send you to a different Gale product than the CDI record was intended for.

This can have undesirable results.

Different record Identifiers for different Gale products

Due to the way Gale's products are structured, two or more records may exist in CDI for identical content. These records may (or may not) contain different record identifiers, depending on the type of product the record is for. This causes problems in certain scenarios for link resolver linking, as the link resolver matches this result against all of your activated/selected Gale products and titles, and may mismatch a CDI record (which is intended for a specific Gale product) against other Gale products, using the wrong record identifier.

Gale may include portions of content (articles, chapters, reference entries, etc.) as opposed to the whole issue, chapter, or reference work for certain topical or focused products (In Context, Literature Resource Center, etc.). For this type of content, in CDI there tends to be different record identifiers as described above. However, since link resolver linking matches this result against all of your activated/selected Gale products and titles and assumes the entire issue/chapter/reference work is included, this can result in a link to content that does not exist on the Gale product that you are trying to link to.

We do use "link in record" (direct) linking for some Gale resources where link resolver does not work and is not an option, such as for Gale archival products.

However, for "traditional" serial and monograph content, there are limitations on customization of links (e.g. the Location ID) and other functionality using "link in record".  Additional development is needed to make "link in record" functionality more flexible before we switch to it for all Gale resources, which would resolve many of the current issues for Gale content.

Some Gale products contain multiple "title"-level links to a resource, most commonly these are separate volumes of a reference work (like an Encyclopedia). For Gale resources which use the link resolver, this can cause multiple URLs to appear for a record that may (or may not) appear to be identical. For more information see: Alma: Gale - Multiple links showing for an article or chapter in the same Gale collection 

  • Article last edited: 20-Sept-2022