Finding & Using Permalinks: Permalinks

A Permalink (short for "permanent link") is a stable or persistent link to a specific web page or article. It provides a stable URL link that is intended to remain unchanged for many years into the future. A permalink to a library resource makes finding the resource very simple.

Saving the link to an article from a database can be tricky. Many students just copy and save the link from the address bar, but these links often create problems when you try to access the article again later.

The solution is to use a permalink instead. Permalinks are permanent links assigned to a specific article by the database. Using the permalink makes getting back to the article much easier and helps prevent copyright issues.

So how do you find an article's permalink? This guide will show you how to find permalinks for articles and ebooks in the Adelphi University Libraries' catalog and databases.

Where you will find the permalink in each database is slightly different. Each tab in the guide is devoted to a single database or database group, and provides text instructions, screen shots, and short video tutorials on the process.

You may be in copyright violation if you download, store or distribute content to outside sources (e.g. Moodle, faculty webpages, email, course reserves) without the appropriate permission from the publisher and/or author(s). 

Adelphi University Libraries has paid for subscriptions to databases of full-text material with copyrighted permission if you link (using permalinks) to the content within those databases rather than simply uploading the actual content.

For more information about copyright at Adelphi University, check out the Copyright and Fair Use for Faculty libguide.

Not all databases use the word "permalink." You may see them referred to as:

• permanent link (or URL)
• persistent link (or URL)
• stable link (or URL)
• document link (or URL)
• durable link (or URL)
• bookmark link (or URL)

And some databases just use the word "link."