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Get it! FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

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What is 'Get it!'?

Get it! is a service that provides you with the options to get items that are available to you as a member of the University of Bristol. These options could include a link to the Full text, a link to the record for the item in our Library Catalogue (http://www.lib.bristol.ac.uk/ALEPH/) or, where these aren't available, a link to our Inter-Library Loans service. Both MetaLib and SFX (which we have renamed Get it!) were fully launched here in January 2006, and are from Ex Libris, the supplier of Aleph, which powers the Library Catalogue. As well as appearing on our eJournals catalogue and MetaLib, we have arranged for many key database suppliers to add 'Get it!' buttons or text to their interfaces, e.g. Web of Science. A list below shows the current databases / resources with our Get it! service.

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How do I use 'Get it!'?

Once you have carried out a search in a database where Get it! linking is available, Get it! buttons Get it! button (or in some databases Get it! as text) will appear next to your results. Click on a Get it! button to see the menu of options to get the item that are available to you as a member of the University of Bristol. The main options that may be available in the menu are:

  • Get full text online.... will link you to to the website, and in many cases the actual web page, where full text is available in electronic form.
  • Check print holdings using University of Bristol library catalogue gives you the option of searching for the item on our library catalogue to see if we have it in print.
  • Request using our Inter-Library Loan Service, if the item is not available online or held in print gives you the option of requesting the item from another library using our Inter-Library Loan service (there is a charge for this service).

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I didn't get an option to 'Get full text online' - why was that?

Links to full-text are provided where the University of Bristol Library has access to the full-text of the item in question. If there is no full-text electronic version, or we do not have a subscription to this, there will be no link to full-text and the message 'No electronic full text is available for this item' will display. If this is the case, look at the alternative options that are given in the menu.

Please note: We are continually fine tuning our Get it! system - if you find any inaccuracies, for example incorrect date threshold or missing links, please contact us with details.

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Why are there more than one 'Get full text online' options?

There may be more than one link to full text if the University of Bristol Library has access to the eJournal through more than one package, or if we also have access through another supplier, or if there is currently some of the content freely available elsewhere. As there is a possibility that one route may not be working (for routine maintenance work for instance) we provide the alternatives as well. .

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I selected the 'Get full text online' option for a particular article but I wasn't taken to the full text. Why?

In some cases, due to the way in which a publisher's website is set up, the Get it! link may not take you directly to the full text of the article in question. However, it will take you as close as possible, perhaps to the contents list of the issue including the article, and from there you should be able to follow links within the site to the full text.

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I selected the 'Get full text online' option but was asked for a password. Why?

In some cases, you will need to enter your UoB username and password to access the full text of a journal even when you are on-campus. In a few cases you will see a link under the 'Get full text online' option that takes you to our list of special usernames and passwords (To access this information you will need to enter your UoB username and password). You will need to make a note of these so that you can enter them when you go to the reference online.

I clicked on one of the options in a Get it! menu but nothing happened. Why?

If you have used these links from Get it! previously in the session, Get it! will re-use the same windows if you have left them open. Check the other windows you have open to find the relevant one. You may find it easier to close each new window that Get it! opens once you have finished with it, so that a new window is opened with successive uses of Get it!

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I sometimes see a box on the Get it! menu containing details of related articles.  What is this?

These related articles are coming from the bX recommender service and will normally be shown when searching for eJournal articles via, for example, databases such as Web of Knowledge. When clicking on the 'Get it!' button to access a journal article, the options listed in the 'Get it!' menu will now include bX which identifies related scholarly articles of potential interest to users and researchers.

This is similar in concept to other recommender services on commercial sites such as Amazon where you can see recommendations for books/products ('Customers who bought this item also bought…'). Our new service, called bX, provides recommendations for scholarly journal articles based on worldwide usage data.

Does the presence of a Get it! button against a record indicate that the University of Bristol has access to the item?

No, not necessarily. All results from Get it! enabled databases will have an Get it! button beside them. You will need to click on the Get it! button for a particular record to see what options are available to get it. If you find that it is not available electronically or in print here you should see an option to use our Inter-Library Loan service to obtain the item from another library (there is a charge for this service).

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The 'Check print holdings' link did not find the reference on the Catalogue - why was that?

A link to check print holdings using University of Bristol Library Catalogue is provided in the Get it! menu but you may find that this gives you a 'The record you requested is not in the database' message. If this is the case, look at the alternative options that are given in the menu.

Please note: Not all of these links are active yet - so you could double check by doing a normal Catalogue search for the item. If you find that we do have print holdings of the reference please contact us with details.

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When I click on a Get it! button the Get it! menu does not display. What is wrong?

If you have used Get it! previously in the session, Get it! will re-use the same windows if you have left them open. Check the other windows you have open to find the relevant one. You may find it easier to close each new window that Get it! opens once you have finished with it, so that a new window is opened with successive uses of Get it!  Another possibility is that you have a pop-up stopping toolbar or other software (eg Google Toolbar) which may interfere with Get it! You could try switching this off and trying Get it! again to see if this is the reason for the problem. Alternatively, if you hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the Get it! link, the Google toolbar should allow the Get it! menu window to appear.

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My Get It! request matches multiple records. What is this?

The multiple record menu appears when the Get It! service cannot find an exact match for the item in your search, this often happens when the source of your search fails to provide enough precise information about the item you are trying to get. Instead, Get It! uses what information it has about the item to offer a number of possible matches. If none of the items offered in the resulting menu are what you're looking for then follow the 'None of these' link and move on to the more conventional menu. Please note, this still doesn't guarantee you will get to the thing itself.

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When I click on a Get it! button the Get it! menu window has a service not available message. What is wrong?

Planned maintenance periods will be announced on the MetaLib home page and the IS website news and announcements section. When Get it! is unavailable you can check for print availability using the Library Catalogue (http://www.lib.bristol.ac.uk/ALEPH), and electronic availability by linking to the electronic journal directly (a Google search for the journal title as a phrase or for the journal's publisher may work) though this is less reliable than Get it! as there may be more than one access route to the journal and we may not have access via all of these.  EBooks can be accessed through the Library Catalogue or, for large packages of eBooks, the 'Material type - eBooks' category on MetaLib.

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Can I use Get it! from off-site (off-campus)?

Yes. Please see our access to external electronic library resources and databases page for details.

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How do I use EndNote with 'Get it!'?

If you use the EndNote reference management software, you can set it up to use our Get it! service. This allows you to see if we have a particular reference in full-text, check if it is on our online Library Catalogue, or order the item through inter-library loan if it is not available. To set up your EndNote to use our Get it! service see the 'How to Set up Open URL link' in the EndNote Knowledgebase. Our open URL address is http://linkserver.bristol.ac.uk:9003/prod.

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How can I get more help or contact someone about 'Get it!'?

See our MetaLib and Get it! contacts page.

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Which databases / resources is Get it! on?

Get it! is currently available on the following databases/resources:
  • eJournals Catalogue - Get it! buttons and links on the search results page.  Date thresholds will display against each journal to indicate what UoB has access to online.
  • MetaLib: your resource gateway - Get it! buttons on Table, Brief and Full views of search results.
  • Web of Science - Get it! buttons on 'Search Results - Summary' and 'Full Record' view. Web of Science includes Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, and is part of Web of Knowledge.
  • Zetoc - Get it! button or 'More information about this article' link under Further Options on the Full Record view only.
  • Google Scholar - to activate  'Get it! @ UoB' links in Google Scholar, go to Settings > Library Links, search for bristol in the Find Library search box, place a tick next to 'University of Bristol - Get It! @ UoB' and then use the 'Save Preferences' button.
    For book references, it can be useful useful to activate the 'Library search' link to go to the the book record on WorldCat, which has our 'View options to get this item' links to Get it!; do this by searching for 'Open WorldCat - Library Search' in the Find Library search box. 
    [Please note that the University Library has no control over the accuracy and availability of Google Scholar information, and we do not assume liability for material provided by third parties. There is no subscription cost for this service]
  • Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED)
  • Anthropology Plus
  • AnthroSource
  • ATLA Religion Database
  • Australian Education Index
  • Bibliographie der deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
  • Bibliography of the History of Art
  • Biosis Previews
  • British Education Index
  • CAB Abstracts
  • CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health)
  • Compendex (via Engineering Village 2)
  • EconLit
  • Embase
  • Engineering Village 2 (Compendex/INSPEC)
  • ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center)
  • FRANCIS (International Humanities and Social Studies)
  • Handbook of Latin American Studies
  • History of Science, Technology and Medicine
  • INSPEC (via Engineering Village 2)
  • International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
  • International Medieval Bibliography (includes the Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale)
  • ISI Proceedings
  • Literature Online
  • MathSciNet
  • Medline
  • MLA International Bibliography
  • Philosophers Index
  • PILOTS
  • PsycINFO
  • Reaxys
  • RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
  • SciFinder - "Get it! (University of Bristol linking service)" text link on the ChemPort connection page
  • Scirus - Get it! buttons for journal article search results. You will need to enable this in your browser on the 'Search Preferences' page (http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/preferences). Next to Library Partner Links, select Enable and then choose 'University of Bristol' from the drop down list, and then 'Save preferences'. An overview of Scirus (3 minute Flash presentation) is available which includes a demonstration of how to enable Get it! links from within the search engine.
  • Social Services Abstracts
  • Sociological Abstracts
  • SUNCAT - "Find a Copy" button on the full record display
  • WorldCat - "View options to get this item'' link on the individual record page

You can use the Quick search > Articles & databases option of the Library home page to find and link to these databases / resources via our MetaLib resource gateway.

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