Typical questions

• • Why can't I download this article from The Economist?

• • Does the library subscribe to the Journal of Legal Studies online?

Starting points

• • Most academic libraries subscribe to e-journals via large databases or aggregators that contain many hundreds or even thousands of titles. This can be confusing to students who often try to get access via journal homepages. It is advisable to direct them to search local library catalogues/e- journals pages in order to retrieve the right login page. They should also be reminded to check the catalogue records carefully as the institution may only subscribe to certain years, or different years may be held on different databases.

• • Increasingly some journals are being published on open access with full text being fully or partially available free online. Many of these titles are of high quality. However, students are advised to check if they are peer-reviewed.

• • Another free alternative is to search subject-based research repositories. These often contain full text open access journal articles (some are author versions) alongside working papers and conference materials. Further information on these is in the Grey Literature chapter.

• • Finally, remember to remind students about journal article indexes. Some may be unaware that these index a broad range of publications and are therefore more suitable for academic literature reviews. Examples are recommended in the main Journal Articles chapter as well as in the Journal articles sub-sections of all the subject categories.

Recommended resources

This section highlights free open access initiatives. Use them to supplement subscription databases offered by your local library.

Key organisations

UKSG [Specialist]

www.uksg.org

Professional organisation of UK library staff. Offers support in issues relating to purchasing, licenses and copyright regarding printed and e-journals.

Digital libraries

These can include directories of free journals and digitisation projects of historic out-of-copyright titles undertaken by libraries.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

www.doaj.org

Long-established community curated list of over 11,000 academic e-journals covering all subject areas. A key starting point for tracing titles. Also allows some searching at journal article level.

Open Edition Journals

journals.openedition.org

Open access French language e-journals site maintained by le Centre pour l‘édition électronique Ouverte (CLEO). Provides free access to over 400 humanities and social science titles.