Finding journal articles

1. Why are articles different?
2. Searching for journal articles
3. Alerting services
4. Free access to journal articles for those in developing countries
5. Free to everyone: Open Access and other free journals
6. Citation searching

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1. Why are articles different?

Often articles are only available commercially. They can be expensive. They are often seen as the highest prestige form of publication, and they are peer reviewed. They may be the author's final version of a paper or piece of work (though, to fit the journal format, they may omit significant data)

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2. Searching for journal articles

There are a number of databases which allow searching of journal articles (often with abstracts). Some are entirely commercial services, some offer free searching but you have to pay for access to the full text of articles

For those of you based in developing countries, there are some services with specially negotiated access that are well worth registering for.  More...

If you or your institution buys the paper copy of a journal, you may also be able to access the online version of the articles free of charge.

Commercial Services: Often you will need a subscription to search Check with your institution (library) to see if you can have access.

• Google Scholar: free to search, links to publishers site for full text access (either pay per article or checks whether your institution has a subscription) More on Google Scholar...
  
• IngentaConnect: free to search, pay per acrticle for online full text. This a website that hosts scholarly books and journals from a range of publishers. Millions of articles, chapters and reports are available to search across, and access to full text is available by pay-per-view or by subscription to individual publications. Some articles are available free. If you don't have a personal or institutional subscription in most cases you can purchase individual articles for your research with a credit card.
  
• ScienceDirect: pay to search, some links to full text for journals which your institution subscribes to. Calls itself the world's largest electronic collection of science, technology and medicine full text and bibliographic information. IIf you are part of a subscribing institute or company, users can access ScienceDirect from a work station at thier work/study place. It is possible to access ScienceDirect remotely either with a librarian-supplied username and password or by using an Athens or Shibboleth login. Anyone can register on ScienceDirect as a Guest User to gain access to the tables of contents and abstracts of all content available in ScienceDirect.
  
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS): a search tool only: pay to search, some links to full text for journals which your institution subscribes to. IBSS focuses on the four core social science subjects of anthropology, economics, politics and sociology and provides comprehensive coverage of these.
  
• OCLC FirstSearch: pay to search; some links to full text for journals which your institution subscribes to. This service offers access to databases and more than 10 million full-text and full-image articles, via WorldCat (a cooperative database of bibliographic records contributed by over 50,000 libraries). It is available on subscription only.
  
• British Library Direct / Articles Direct: free to search, pay per article for full text. Individuals ofr libraries can use the service. Includes a tables of contents browse option.
  
• Dialog: pay to search. Aimed more at specialist commercial users. Content includes articles and reports from news feeds, newspapers, broadcast transcripts and trade publications, market research reports and analyst notes, as well as repositories of scientific and technical data, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property data. Additional content areas include government regulations, social sciences, food and agriculture, reference, energy and environment, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medicine.

More advice:

• British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) offers a list of development-focused free online journals
  
• Publicly Accessible Free Online Journals List  - a comprehensive list from the Global Development Network (GDNet) of sites offering publicly accessible free online journals. Also offers information on subscription only services
  
• Electronic Journals Library - Service offering free access to some full-text journals and others via subscription service to participating organisations
  
  

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3. Alerting services

Many journal publishers and bibliographic services offer alerting services that let you know when new items are published or included on particular topic areas. If you know the publisher of the journal, check their website in case they offer an alerting service.

• Zetoc is available free of charge to any member of a JISC-sponsored UK further or higher education institution. A list of eligible UK further and higher education institutions is provided on the JISC Web site. Zetoc is also available to the UK Research Councils, Irish higher education institutions and CHEST Associated and Affiliated institutions upon payment of an annual fee. Searchavble via Athens password
  
• Science Direct Alert, is free to register for and can be created to notify you by e-mail when a stored search retrieves new results, when new articles pertaining to a specific topic are available on ScienceDirect, or when a new issue of a particular journal or a new volume of a particular book becomes available on ScienceDirect. ~
  
• SARA - Scholarly Articles Research Alerting - this service is free of charge and it will email you the tables of contents of journals from Routledge, or Taylor & Francis and Psychology Press. You can select to receive alerts by keyword, title, sub-category or main category.
  
• List of Alerting Services from Delaware University Library

 

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4. Free access to journal articles for those in developing countries

• A Library in your Letterbox: The GDN/BLDS Document Delivery Service supplies articles or book chapters from the holdings of the British Library for Development Studies. It is a free service, provided only to librarians or information staff at research institutes that have registered for eligibility in developing and transition countries
  
• GDN Journal Access Portal this service is available only to eligible individual researchers based in a low or middle income country. Access is provided to full-text articles from 120 social science journals
  
• HINARI : collection of full-text online journals covering medicine, nursing and related health and social sciences. Maintained by WHO, access is available to members of public institutions from eligible countries and registration is required
  
• AGORA - Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture. This service offers free access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to qualifying public institutions in developing countries
  
• PERI - On-line Full Text Journals and Databases part of the services being developed by INASP's Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI) 
  
• FreeForAll is a consortium of North American libraries that provides free journal articles to patrons/librarians in developing and less developed nations. To register please email Laurelkgraham@gmail.com. Ordering is done through PubMed. Sign up via Yahoo Groups
  

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5. Free to everyone: Open Access and other free journals

• INASP Directory of Free and Open Access Online Resources Multi-disciplinary and subject-specific sources of full-text materials material
  
• DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals. This service offers service covers free, full text, scientific and scholarly journals. Maintained by Lund University Libraries
  
• PubMed Central (PMC) is an open access (what is this) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, and is mantained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  
• For a good selection of sites offering publicly accessible free online journals, see Publicly Accessible Free Online Journals comprehensive list from the Global Development Network (GDN) . Also offers information on subscription only services
  

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6. Citation searching

Often when you carry out an search for an item (article, book, etc.) you will find other sources that mention the item, or include it in their lists of references used.

How often an item is cited (referred to) in another document, with full author, title, publication details etc. included in the article's reference section, can be an indication of the quality and validity of an item.

Some databases allow you to search specifically for citations of pubications, such as:

• SI Web of Science, part of the Web of Knowledge group of subscription sevices, compiles the Social Sciences Citation Index which offers current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references from scholarly social sciences journals and science and technology journals. Many UK academic institutions will probably have access to it via a subscription.
  
• Google scholar can be used to locate citations
  
  

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