Find Affordable Academic Journals - Journal Access Solutions

[Lambduh]

Having recently lost access to my old universities online library and thus access to all of the journals that the college is subscribed to i am now seeking other means of accessing recent papers. Doing a bit of searching didn't turn up much unfortunately and as such i started thinking of what would be the perfect solution and was curious if something like it existed! I am not looking to cheat the system and get these papers free I would just like a more economical means than having to buy every paper that looks interesting at 20 a pop. arXiv is great but unfortunately i can't find a lot of things on there that i want to read.

Because I look at several different topics and read a lot of papers I was curious if there was a service similar to a Universities where you can purchase access to a bunch of different journals for a set fee per month or something of the sort. Basically an open version of Academic Search Premier or something. I can even imagine a fee based system where you get to view X amount of papers per month or something, /shrug.

Random other question: Are scientific papers similar to published books in that they aren't part of the public domain until the death of the author + 70 years? (or whatever it is exactly). I was surprised by the fact that even most papers from the early 1900 are still behind the closed doors of journals and not open to everyone:(

 

[story645]

Having recently lost access to my old universities online library and thus access to all of the journals that the college is subscribed to i am now seeking other means of accessing recent papers.

A lot of professional societies provide access to the journals they publish (ex: ACM, IEEE), so if you're looking for those types of papers you may want to join a society. I also found that a few societies offer subsidized jstor subscriptions if you're a member.

 

[Mene]

I understand the frustration of losing access to academic journals and the high cost of purchasing individual papers. Fortunately, there are several options for finding affordable academic journals.

One option is to check with your local public or university library. Many libraries offer free access to a wide range of academic journals through their online databases. You can also ask your librarian if they have interlibrary loan services, which allow you to request specific articles from other libraries for a small fee.

Another option is to use open access journals, which make their articles freely available to the public. These journals often have lower publication fees for authors, which can result in more affordable access for readers. You can search for open access journals in your field through directories like the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Additionally, some universities and research institutions have institutional repositories where their faculty and students can deposit their published papers. These repositories often have open access policies, making the papers available to the public for free.

In terms of a service similar to a university's journal access, there are subscription-based services like JSTOR and ScienceDirect that offer access to a large number of journals for a monthly or annual fee. However, these services may not have access to all journals in your specific field.

As for your question about the copyright of scientific papers, it varies by publisher and journal. Some journals may have open access policies, while others may require a subscription or payment to access the paper. It is important to check the copyright policies of the journal before accessing or sharing any papers.

In summary, there are several options for finding affordable academic journals, including checking with your local library, using open access journals, and utilizing institutional repositories. It is also important to be aware of the copyright policies of the journals you are accessing.