We’ve written in the past about the Open Access Button, a browser plugin that helps you locate open access versions of articles. In 2017, a new tool was launched to make finding open access publications even easier: Unpaywall.
Unpaywall might sounds at first a little… sketchy… like something from the folks who brought you SciHub or other piratical sites that redistribute copyrighted material by exploiting security loopholes. But it’s legit and funded by such worthy organizations as the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Created by Impactstory, an open-source website devoted to tracking alternative metrics and new measures, Unpaywall respects copyright but still delivers available open access full text an estimated 50-85% of the time depending on the article topic and year of publication.
How to Use It
Unpaywall is a plugin for the Chrome or Firefox browsers. Once installed, the plugin looks for a legal open access copy using the article metadata embedded on the page. A green open lock icon indicates that an open access version has been located. Click the green tab to access it.
The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts
David W. Stahle, Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Dennis B. Blanton, et. al
Vol. 280, Issue 5363, pp. 564-567
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5363.564
How It Works
Unpaywall has gathered metadata for more than 10 million articles from sources such as DOAJ, PubMed Central, DataCite, and others. ImpactStory then routes requests through its oaDOI (Open Access Digital Object Identifier) tool to quickly located the best source for the article, with Green OA versions being preferred.
But that’s a lot of alphabet soup in one sitting! All you really need to know is that Unpaywall provides a satisfying, quick answer to the question… I wonder if this is freely available somewhere?