Setting Up Information Portal to Use 856 Tags (Linkable Tags)

Information Portal lets users search your library’s catalog and then follow hyperlinks to web sites, graphical images, or other information cataloged within an Information Portal search result. Information Portal uses the linkable 856 MARC tags to do this. You can configure these 856 tags to contain images (or “thumbnail” icons) or text instructions that are hyperlinked to a web site, electronic book (eBook), or anything on the Internet. You can also configure the behavior of these hyperlinks and define how Information Portal displays hyperlinks (as URLs, hyperlinked text, or graphical images) on your Information Portal Search Results page. (For example, you can configure an 856 tag to display hyperlinks to electronic book [eBook] collections cataloged with a requested bib record. Or, you can hyperlink a graphical thumbnail image that displays a picture of a book’s cover.) This allows you greater flexibility with how you want hyperlinks displayed on an Information Portal Full Bib page.

You can also use linkable tags for accessing netLibrary electronic books (eBooks) via netLibrary’s web site. (If your library purchases netLibrary eBooks, users can view and check out a netLibrary eBook in your library’s eBook collection.) By cataloging the appropriate MARC 856 tag, and with the addition of the Information Portal software, users can search your library’s catalog using Information Portal and follow hyperlinks to netLibrary’s eBooks. Users can then read the eBook online over the Internet, or download it to a personal computer for reading at a later time.

You have one MARC map on your Horizon system that you can use as linkable tags: the Tag856 MARC map. The Tag856 MARC map should be used to display linkable tags to URLs, graphical images, or other information.

You can set up Information Portal to use the MARC maps as they are, or you can customize the MARC maps to suit your library’s needs. When you set up Information Portal to use the MARC maps, you add an element for the MARC map to a search result display. Since this MARC map gives you more flexibility with linkable 856 MARC tags, it can be used only with Information Portal (not with other Horizon PAC products, such as staff searching and PAC for Windows).

If you want to, you can display 856 tag image data on the right side of a full bib display or the horizontal display (in Reserve Bookroom).

This section explains how to set up linkable tags in Information Portal by doing these tasks:

 


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