During Open Access Week the Libraries celebrate open source tools and open access publications.
But did you know that even the subscription databases we provide to campus can help you in locating open access publications? Current students faculty, or staff members have access to the millions of dollars’ worth of subscriptions from the Libraries. But the following tools can unlock resources that alumni, community members, students at other institutions, or independent scholars can also access. These search engines can reveal just how large and vibrant the open access movement already is.
QuickSearch Open Access Filter and Marker
Earlier this year, we described some updates to our QuickSearch service that provide filters for Open Access content. QuickSearch, our “search everything” service, is open to anyone to search–though only current students, faculty, and staff will be able to access most full text. The new open access filter in QuickSearch allows alumni, independent scholars, and high school students throughout Arkansas and beyond to location relevant research papers that are open to all.
Items that are open access and freely available to all are designated by an open access icon. In addition, a filter is now available to limit your search results to open access items only.
QuickSearch Open Access icon and filter
Web Of Science Open Access Filter and Marker
Web of Science, an interdisciplinary index of more than 18,000 top research journals across all disciplines, has devoted considerable energy in the last few years to identifying, vetting, and indexing the most highly-ranked open access journals. All open access journals included in their index go through the same rigorous review process that is also applied to subscription titles. Thus, Web of Science provides some measure of quality, readership, and legitimacy in addition to information about “free” content. Note that access to the Web of Science index is limited to current students, faculty, and staff but they can share any open access materials they locate in this service with anyone worldwide.
You can limit your search results in Web of Science to Open Access articles:
Web of Science Open Access Filters
Use the Find it! button to locate full text from the Libraries or view the detailed page for an article to search for full text on Google Scholar.
JSTOR Open Access Book Collections
JSTOR, the popular archive of core academic journals, has added an expanding collection of Open Access scholarly books. More than 2,000 Open Access ebooks are now available at no cost to libraries or users including content from leading publishers such as University of California Press, University of Michigan Press, and Cornell University Press. These titles are being added to the library catalog and already in QuickSearch. Unlike other areas in JSTOR, open access books are freely available to all.
You can access the books directly or look for the Open Access marker in search results:
JSTOR Search for Open Access Books