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SFX (Ejournals Finder) FAQs
About SFX
- What is SFX?
SFX is a tool provided by Baylor Health Sciences Library that creates shortcuts to the full-text of online articles, as well as links to other library services. The name SFX is an abbreviation for “special effects” and was chosen by the company that designed this tool. When you see SFX in an electronic resource, simply click on the button to see a menu of options for the citation of interest. These options may include:
- Links to the full-text of an article found during a database search (i.e. Ovid or Pubmed) regardless of the content provider
- A search and browse tool to help users determine the availability and access to journals the library has purchased (at least some) full-text access to. (i.e. the Electronic Journals page)
- Automated searching of the library catalog for our print or electronic holdings
SFX saves you time - you no longer need to write down a citation and then go to the catalog to see if the Library owns the publication. SFX does the work for you!
Look for the SFX button while doing database searches. It will look something like: 
- Who can use SFX?
SFX is available to all users and guests on the Baylor University Medical Center and Baylor College of Dentistry campuses, and to users of the Baylor College of Dentistry proxy server or VPN.
- Do I need a password to use SFX?
No, if you're using SFX from on campus or through the BCD proxy server or VPN, access to most journals is provided through IP authentication (the journal provider determines whether you can access the full-text of an article based on the IP address of your computer).
Otherwise, SFX will not work and you will not be able to access the full-text of journal articles.
Using SFX
- How do I use SFX?
Many databases are SFX-enabled. Start a literature search in any SFX-enabled database appropriate for your subject. You will find the SFX button/hyperlink adjacent to the individual citations at the search results screen or at the full record screen for a citation. Simply click on the SFX button/hyperlink. A menu of available options for that particular article/book record will be displayed in a new window. This is the SFX Menu.
The SFX button/hyperlink will look something like:
- What do the SFX menu options mean?
- How do I get to the full-text online version of my journal article?
To access the full-text online version of the journal article, click on the following SFX menu choice:
Full text available via __________
Sometimes an article is available from more than one database, such as Ebsco or Science Direct. You can choose either database to access your article. If one is temporarily not working, try another.
- What if the full-text online article is not available through SFX?
Choose one of the other service options available on the menu:
- The article may be available through one of our print journal holdings. Use the Check for print holdings at...: the check the BHSL catalog to determine whether the journal is available in print for the appropriate date.
- You can request to have a copy of the article acquired for you through the library's document delivery system. Us the Request document via Document Delivery :
- Search the web more information on this topic. Use the Try searching the Web for more info: link to initiate a Google search using the article's title as the search terms.
If none of the options are acceptable, or you need more help please use the online Questions/Comments form.
- Why are there multiple links to full-text?
The Library may subscribe to an online publication from more than one source. The various options are included on the SFX menu to provide you with a choice. Different sources may provide different formats and different coverage dates. For example, some may provide a PDF (reprint) format, and others only plain text. Also, if one online version is not working, try other options.
If you are unable to access the full-text article that is indicated, go to the SFX menu and choose "Having Problems? Please let us know." Using the form provided, be sure to check the box indicating the service(s) that you had a problem with. There is a box at the bottom of the form that you may check if you wish to be informed about the status of your reported error.
- If an SFX link to full-text is not working, what can I do right away?
If there is more than one full-text option on the SFX menu, try another one.
Try clicking on the library catalog link from the SFX menu. A new window will open with information from the library catalog. If the information presented is not helpful, click on the “new search” link in this new window and try searching for the title of the journal or book. This second search might find it—for example, if we have a different edition of the book or if there is something wrong with the SFX link.
Come by the Library circulation desk or call at 214-828-8151 (BCD line) or 214-820-2377 (BUMC line).
Google Scholar
- What is it?
Google Scholar is another search engine created by the Google team to search specifically for scholarly materials. It is located at scholar.google.com. The engine is multi-disciplinary and is capable of find "peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations."
- How does it work with SFX?
Similar to the way Google "spiders" create databases of web pages by "crawling" them for relevant data and then making them available to you via an easy search interface, Google Scholar can "crawl" the BHSL SFX database to find out which of the articles it finds are available to BHSL patrons via SFX.
After you enter your search terms and press enter, the Google Scholar results page will contain a link entitled Get it at BHSL next to the title of every article which is available via SFX.
Additionally, a Check BHSL option is available for those results which are not available electronically via BHSL's SFX. This option is located beneath the result entry. Clicking the link opens the Advanced Option SFX Menu screen. From there you will be able to check the BHSL catalog for the item or request it via Interlibrary Loan.
- Where Can I use BHSL's SFX with Google Scholar?
BHSL SFX will work with Google Scholar from any on-campus or BHCS network computer that normally has access to BHSL E-resources.
Off-campus use is also available, but access to E-resources is limited to those with access to the library's web page via a VPN or proxy server. For more information please see the Electronic Access to Library Resources section of the Library FAQ. To setup off-campus use of the BHSL's SFX with Google Scholar:
- From the Google Scholar search page or any Google Scholar results page click on the Scholar Preferences link next to the Search button.
- Under the Library Links section enter BHSL in the search box and click the Find Library button.
- Choose the Baylor Health Sciences Library (Get it at BHSL) check box and click the Save Preferences button at the bottom.
Problems or Questions
- After I click on the full-text option in the SFX window, the publisher's web site or database opens, but then I get an error message. Is there full-text available or not?
In the vast majority of cases, these error messages mean that full-text exists at the publisher's site, but for some reason the SFX-generated URL wasn't accepted. When this happens, look for a search screen at the publisher's site and search for your article. Remember that you can always refer back to the SFX Menu or the original search session window for information about the article you are searching for.
In a limited number of cases, the full-text you need is no longer available at the site, but the SFX server doesn't know about it yet. In these cases you will not be able to access full-text because it is no longer available from this resource.
For very recent (within the past month) articles, sometimes SFX will assume the content has been loaded in a database when it actually hasn't yet. In this case, your best bet is to try again in a couple of days.
- Will SFX get me to all of the electronic journals that BHSL subscribes to?
No. There are several reasons a journal may not work with SFX, but the vast majority of them do. If SFX can't link to a journal, you'll be able to search our catalog and may find a link to the full-text there.
- Why don’t I always go straight to the article when I click on "full-text"?
SFX gets you as close as it can to the full-text of the article. Differences in publishers’ web sites and databases mean that sometimes SFX can only get you to a table of contents, a journal homepage with a list of available issues and volumes, or a publisher’s web site with a list of journals. At that point, you may need to navigate or perform a search to locate the specific article.
In some cases, the closest SFX can get you is to the search screen of a database that contains the article, and you will have to perform a search to retrieve the article from the database. In other cases, SFX can get you is to a list or menu of databases, one of which contains the article. You will have to look on the list for the database that the SFX menu says contains the article, enter that database, and then perform a search to retrieve the article.
- I click on the SFX link but nothing happens and no window opens. Why is this?
When you click on an SFX link, your browser needs to open another window to display the SFX information. If you are using a pop-up blocker program, it will prevent the browser from opening pop-up windows. Disabling this software or configuring it to allow pop-ups from a particular web-site should allow SFX to function properly.
- Why don’t I see any SFX button/hyperlink in the database I am searching?
There are several possible reasons:
- A few databases don't support SFX linking at all. Libraries are working with database vendors to impress upon them the importance of including this option and the number of such databases is quickly shrinking.
- You have disabled JavaScript in your browser. If it's turned off, the SFX buttons/hyperlinks will not appear. Re-enable JavaScript and everything should be fine.
- In some databases, such as ISI Web of Knowledge, you should make sure the starting page has completely loaded before you start searching, and click on an individual article record to see the SFX link.
- When the "Check for print holdings at Baylor Health Sciences Library Catalog" does not find anything, does that mean the library does not hold the item?
Not always. A manual search in the library catalog for the title of the book or the journal might find it. Another option is to look for the journal in our list of Currently Received Print Journals.
The BHSL Library does not subscribe to all the titles indexed in each database. Sometimes these journals can get incorrectly "turned on" in SFX, so you may find items listed which the library does not have. If you find an instance of this, please let us know.
If you find that we don't have the journal you want, you can go to the SFX window and select "Request document via Document Delivery", which will generate a DD request form for you to complete.
- When I click on the full-text link, the article isn't there or I get an error message. What has happened?
There are several possible reasons:
- There may be a temporary technical problem with the system hosting the full-text article.
- There may be a typographical error or wrong information in the citation. As SFX uses the citation information from the source database to build a link to the article, any incorrect information in the citation will make SFX unable to link properly to the full-text. If this is the case, SFX may link you to the journal publisher's web site instead and you can then search for the article there.
- The link-to syntax used by SFX to build full-text links may be out-of-date because the publisher has made changes to its site.
- You may not be using a current version of your web browser software.
Please let us know about any problems you encounter so that we can investigate the causes and correct the error. This will also help us to avoid similar problems in the future.
- What does the address “about:blank” mean?
This is another Internet Explorer quirk. When you select a service that requires SFX to re-search the Web of Science databases, that address is displayed while the search is taking place. Once the results are displayed, the address (which is meaningless) goes away.
- I clicked on a menu option in SFX, but I didn't see anything, or the new window that I see is too small to read.
When you click on a specific menu option, SFX opens it in a new window so that you can return to the SFX menu if needed. See if the new window is “hiding” behind another window on your desktop. You can resize windows by dragging the edges or corners with your mouse.
SFX always opens a window for the SFX menu, and then a separate window for the full-text or catalog search. Be sure to close these windows when you are done looking at the full-text or doing a catalog search.
- When I go back to make a second selection from the SFX window, nothing seems to happen.Why?
This problem is limited to Internet Explorer. When you first click on an option in the SFX window, IE opens a secondary browser window on top of your open windows. However, when you make another selection, that secondary browser window does not get promoted to the top again.
One solution is to drag the secondary browser window to another portion of your screen so it's not blocked by the SFX window. However, it could still be blocked by any other window (including the original search window, if you've moved it to the top), so you may occasionally have to go looking for it.
- I click on the SFX link and I see the menu start to display, but it never completes the menu. It just hangs there.
This server burp seems to happen sometimes. Try closing the SFX Menu window, then click on the SFX link again. This usually works.
- The journal I want to view requires a password.
A small number of the journals do require passwords for access. These are all clearly noted in the SFX Menu. If a special ID and password are required, come by the reference desk or call 214-828-8151 (BCD line) or 214-820-2377 (BUMC line).
- I used SFX and then my session told me I had "timed out." I lost my search!
Watch the time when you open an SFX window and start accessing full-text. Ovid and some other databases are set to time out after 15 minutes of inactivity. If you look in the Ovid window behind the SFX menu, you will see that it keeps track of how much time is left in your session. If you don't touch Ovid for 15 minutes, your session will close and you will lose your work.
- Why are there links to PubMed? It’s not a full-text service.
In addition to being an indexing and abstracting service, PubMed is unique in that it provides access and links to the integrated molecular biology databases maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). These databases contain DNA and protein sequences, genome mapping data, and 3-D protein structures, aligned sequences from populations and the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM). PubMed Central is included because it provides access to more than 100 full-text electronic biomedical journals.
Other information resources which provide added value other than full-text may be included in the future.
- Why don’t I see SFX links in the Title Summary list for Web of Knowledge?
Web of Knowledge only displays SFX links at the Full Record View level. You must select a record and view it to see the SFX button.
- Why don’t I see SFX links in any of the Web of Knowledge records?
When no SFX links display, there are two possible causes. The first is that you must let the first Web of Science screen fully load before you begin your session.
If you are sure you let the login screen fully load before starting your session and you still don't see the SFX link, a second possibility is that you need to clear your computer's cache. In Netscape, go to Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Cache and clear the memory and disk cache. In IE, select Tools/Internet Options and then under the General tab, select delete temporary Internet files.
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