LibKey Nomad: One-click Browser Access to Scholarly Articles

Have you ever been on a publisher’s website, found the perfect article, and then were prompted to pay for it? We have a solution for you! The LibKey Nomad web browser extension can automatically connect LMU students, faculty, and staff to any available subscriptions we have through the William H. Hannon Library.

This browser extension—which works with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge—looks for the DOI of an article and compares it to our holdings. If we have a subscription, LibKey will connect you directly to the PDF. If the content is available open access, it will also connect you to the manuscript.

How to Install LibKey Nomad

To install LibKey Nomad in the browser on your personal computer, go to the LibKey Nomad website for a two-step installation and configuration.

  1. Click the button for your preferred browser to automatically install the extension.
  2. Once you’ve installed the extension, you still need to connect it to the library’s collections. At the prompt to “Select Organization,” type “Loyola Marymount University” into the text box. The extension will confirm that it has saved LMU as your library.

Note: This browser extension is already installed on the computers at the library work stations and in library classrooms.

How To Use LibKey Nomad

When you see the LMU-branded button on the bottom-left of your screen (below), select “Download PDF” to quickly download the PDF from the publisher’s website. If you only need the article’s citation, select the graduation cap icon on the right-hand side of the button. If you hit a snag and need to consult with us, select the talk icon to open a live chat window to be connected to the library’s Ask-A-Librarian service.

Once the extension is installed in your browser, you may see the LibKey button on sites you didn’t expect, such as PubMed, Wikipedia, the New York Times, and others.

In the PubMed example below, notice the two buttons. The “Download PDF” button will download the article to your desktop or open the PDF in your browser (depending on your settings). The “View Complete Issue” button will connect you to BrowZine, our browsing platform for electronic journals, so you can see all the articles in the issue in which this one was published. Connecting to BrowZine is a great way to see other articles on a similar topic as the one you found, especially if it is part of a themed journal issue.

As always, if you need additional assistance, visit us at the library or connect with us online.