Why don't journals give full texts to students?

[karthik3k]

Why don't the journals give full texts to students ??

 

[Jikx]

Your university *should* give you access to most of them for free... at my uni, we can access e-journals via a special proxy address.

 

[Moonbear]

That's not always the case. Universities have to pay exhorbitant amounts for institutional subscriptions to journals, so poorer universities need to limit the number of journals with online access. Well, it's not really that exhorbitant when you consider the number of users, but it is a large expense nonetheless. Some universities combine their efforts and share resources so you can get an article copied from the holdings of one of their partner institutions for just the cost of copying, or sometimes free if it's a short enough article.

However, I see that Karthik is posting from India. I know that's one country I still get "reprint request" cards from, so their universities likely can't afford the variety of journal subscriptions available to us in the West. Karthik, if there is a particular journal you use often, it's often cheapest to join the society that publishes it as a student member. Those membership fees are usually about the same as the cost of one or two articles purchased individually, gives you full access to the journal, and gets you involved in a society that focuses on your area of interest.