OHIO Libraries research tool delivers full-text articles with a single click

Students, faculty, and staff can now access millions of full-text articles from scholarly publishers with the new research tool LibKey Nomad. Made available through Ohio University Libraries, the new browser extension moves seamlessly between publisher websites and the University Libraries’ online journal subscriptions to deliver one-click article access to important research information.

Purchased at the beginning of the pandemic for OHIO researchers, this vendor-based tool helps facilitate direct access to full text articles through the publisher’s website.

“Everybody’s path through the scholarly literature is different. There is no one right way,” Dr. Kelly Broughton, assistant dean for research and education services, said. “The problem is that a whole bunch of those paths bump into a paywall.” 

 LibKey helps cut out having to navigate a complex search to get around those paywalls to read full text articles. Once installed on the user’s browser, the Ohio University “Article Link” button will appear on the publisher’s web page for journal articles that the University Libraries purchases. And, for publishers like Elsevier, once the user goes through the multifactor authentication process, they will be linked directly to the PDF. 

“This tool connects almost all of the scholarly publishers’ websites directly with our subscriptions,” Broughton said. “You only need to download the LibKey Nomad extension for whichever browser you use (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and choose ‘Ohio University’ from the list of libraries. Then, when you are on a publisher’s website for a title you have direct access [to the full text] …through the Libraries.”

The LibKey browser extension is easy to install and is currently available for Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave and Vivaldi.

To take full advantage of the tool and to learn more about how to install and connect to the LibKey browser extension, check out the Libraries’ FAQ or reach out to the Libraries’ subject librarians if more help is needed.