Open Access Journals
A guide to searching Open Access publications
Open Access--Background
Open Access (OA) sources developed in response to advances in digital technology and substantial subscription price increases by publishers.
OA sources have several characteristics that set them apart from the traditional publications found in EBSCOhost, ProQuest, or LexisNexis.
- Online—OA sources do not have hard copy equivalents, they are available exclusively online.
- Immediate—there are no embargo periods or having to wait for an online version of an article to become available on a database.
- Free—You are not charged directly to use the Library’s databases. They are paid for indirectly through your tuition, this is an example of a transparent cost. OA sources are not paid for by users or intermediaries, such as database providers. Costs are borne by authors, sponsoring institutions, professional societies, or other parties at the production part of the publishing process.
- None-to-some copyright and licensing restrictions—by placing few, if any restraints on OA published works, authors hope to acquire as broad a readership as possible. This does not mean OA materials can be plagiarized.
- Low-to-no rights to use—with some modest restrictions, articles can be shared among all interested readers and researchers, not just subscribers to a publication or database.
Open Access is the most exciting and expanding segment of the scholarly publishing market. Journal options are growing to include virtually all major disciplines and professions.
General OA Searching
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) The original open access search engine. Coverage extends to more than 10,000 journals. Although it strives to be exhaustive, there is an emphasis on scientific publications.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) A parallel, but unrelated, development to DOAJ covering a range of academic titles by a variety of global publishers, particularly from Europe.
- OAISter (pronounced like oyster) This is the union catalog resulting from the Open Access Initiative begun at the University of Michigan. In addition to including journals OAIster includes an extensive collection of scanned public domain items and is searched through the Worldcat interface.
- Internet Archive More than an OA site, the Internet Archive provides access to millions of free books, movies, software, and music. The site also includes the WayBack machine for searching websites by day.
- Open DOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) This search service uses the Google Custom Search feature to search the OA repositories linked to Open DOAR for a variety of academic research. Most items in these repositories are available in full text.
- BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) An online search tool for open access repositories containing a wide range of documents and other resources ranging from software to sheet music. This site is hosted at the Bielefeld University Library in Germany.
- Digital Commons Network This network is curated by academic librarians and their institutions. It includes peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations, as well as working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly works.
- eScholarship A dynamic research platform to the University of California system’s OA scholarly publishing services.
- Open Access Journals Search Engine (OAJSE) An OA search interface for English language publications and other resources. This site has not been updated since 2013.
- JSTOR Register & Read While not AO, per se, JSTOR offers some free features. Sign up for free registration to read up to three/week of the more than five million journal articles in JSTOR. These articles cannot be down loaded.
- JSTOR Public Domain Search While not AO, per se, JSTOR offers some free features. Articles published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere can be freely read and downloaded. To initiate this search limit, click on the Advanced Search and select the "Include only content I can access" box
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