Persistent URLs in Databases  

What are Persistent URLs otherwise known as PURLS?

"PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) are Web addresses that act as permanent identifiers in the face of a dynamic and changing Web infrastructure. Instead of resolving directly to Web resources, PURLs provide a level of indirection that allows the underlying Web addresses of resources to change over time without negatively affecting systems that depend on them. This capability provides continuity of references to network resources that may migrate from machine to machine for business, social or technical reasons."

This definition is provided courtesy OCLC and is located on the site http://purl.oclc.org/docs/index.html

To get access to a link to an article, film, image, journal or database from home, follow these steps:

1. Copy the full url from the email you received and paste into a browser address window
2. Highlight and copy the following string:

                 http://libproxy.boisestate.edu/login?url=

3.Paste the string from #2 IN FRONT OF the url from your email. The resulting url should look something like this:

                 http://libproxy.boisestate.edu/login?url=http://scholar.google.com

4.Enter your BroncoWeb username and password when prompted.

By making this adjustment to the url that the database vendor sent to you in an email, you will be utilizing the Library's proxy server to access that resource. The Library's proxy server will recognize that you are not physically on campus, and will prompt you to enter your BroncoWeb username and password to gain access to the vendor’s site. At that point, the vendor will once again recognize that you are an 'authenticated' user, and allow you access to their resources.