Why You Should Use The Email Tool
When you do research, you can use the email tool in a library database to send yourself articles. Using a database's native email feature helps ensure that you...
- save the full text (PDF)
- receive a complete citation for the article
- have a permalink (stable URL) that will take you back to the article record in the future
In most databases, the URL at the top of the browser is not a stable, permanent link.
This unstable URL will stop working after a few hours and will not work from off-campus.
Using a database's email tool gives you the "good" permalink.
Email tools also provide a full citation. Saving the full citation-- including the journal title, year, volume, and issue number-- helps you retrace your steps and find the article again using the Library's Citation Lookup tool.
Pro Tip: If you're doing a lot of research, use a Citation Manager such as Zotero to save and organize of all your citations. Citation managers can also create bibliographies for you! See our Zotero Guide for more info.
What Email Tools Look Like
Here's what the email tool looks like in our most common database platforms. Look for envelope icons or "share" options to find the email tool. In most databases, you can enter your email address as both the sender and recipient.
| Discovery Search |
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ProQuest
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JSTOR
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Ebsco
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| ScienceDirect |  |
What If You Can't Find The Email Tool?
Sometimes the email option is tricky to find. Here's some tips for emailing articles to yourself from databases without an obvious "email" icon:
- Look for "share" or "view" options instead. Often, the email button is hidden under "Share."
- Look for options to "email to a friend" or "share with a colleague." Put your own email address in for the "friend".
- You can always download a PDF and attach it to an email that you send to yourself in Outlook, Gmail, or another email client.
- If you go that route, make sure you save the citation information by using the "Cite" or "Citation" feature of the database to copy and paste the article's full information.
- Copy the permalink or DOI into an email an send it to yourself.