What is Unpaywall, why should I use it, and how do I set it up?
Answer
Unpaywall is a service that harvests open access content and makes it more easily accessible. Their website states, "We harvest Open Access content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use."
Why should you care about Unpaywall? If you activate it, it can improve or fix your Open Access linking, leading to less patron frustration.
There are two places to make changes for Unpaywall content in Primo VE: API settings and the Primo View.
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Go to Fulfillment > General > Other Settings
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In the mapping table, scroll down to enable_open_access_services_from_unpaywall_api and change the default setting from false to true:
- The link will default to display at the end of the list of services but you can push it higher in the list by using Online Services Order configuration (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic > Online Services Order) by adding Open Access to the top of Order of Online Services. This only applies to Unpaywall, and not other OA collections because according to Ex Libris "Regarding the Open Access / ROAD / DOAJ, I think these are actually Services, while the Unpaywall Open Access link is the result of an API integrated into the Link Resolver / Primo VE Services Page in Alma. I believe that resources dependent on these Electronic Collections with a Service/Inventory will also need to be added to the Online Services Order in the Fulfillment Tab of the Alma Configuration Menu in order for their order to be set."
- If you're using direct linking, you can adjust it to not link directly if there are Open Access results. You would do this to avoid automatically linking to bad OA links (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic >Direct Linking). Note that this direct linking option will only show if you changed your mapping table Enable Open Access (first step) to true.
Ex Libris Documentation: How to Utilize the Unpaywall API for Open Access Content and Resources in Discovery
To get links to show in your brief results, check the "Display Unpaywall Links" option on the General tab in your Primo view (Discovery>Display Configuration>Configure Views):
This setting will add links to Unpaywall full text to your brief results list. Note that this is part of Ex Libris's Quicklinks project. The documentation states, "Quicklinks complement links provided by Unpaywall. While Unpaywall focuses on content that is free to read for users, Quicklinks shows links to both free to read content and paywalled content. When the Quicklinks feature is enabled in Primo/VE, it takes precedence over Unpaywall links, and Unpaywall links are displayed only if there are no Quicklinks available."
Ex Libris Documentation: Primo VE User Interface/Quicklinks in Primo and Primo VE