In the past, for cost reasons the TUHH had only a few subscriptions to publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley. A broader offer was only achieved through access to digital collections without archival rights.
As the TUHH is involved in the DEAL project, we currently have extremely limited access to Elsevier journals. This of course means more effort in research and teaching. Therefore we would like to show you different ways to get the needed articles:
Figure: D. Bieler
Finding an Open Access
Some authors have already published their articles in Open Access (OA), either in the journal, in a repository, on their own website or in a scientific network. These versions – if available – can almost always be found via Google Scholar: install the Google Scholar button for your browser.
1. Browser plugins
Browser plug-ins indicate whether an article is also available as an Open Access version.
unpaywall
When surfing on websites of scientific journals, provider platforms or databases, a green lock signals after a few seconds whether an Open Access version has been found. A click to this symbol leads you to the free PDF.- Alternatives are the Open Access Button
This plug-in complements the display of the Open Access Version with a request to the author if no version was found. - CORE Discovery
Beta. Inspired by unpaywall.
2. Open repositories
Publishers like Elsevier and others allow the option to publish accepted manuscript versions via the institutional repository after a so-called embargo period (12-24 months per journal or less). These versions are often searchable via Google Scholar. In addition from the Elsevier Guidelines (view 13.06.2019 13:25) : “Preprint: Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. … Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript.”
Here you find a selection of repositories that contain Open Access articles:
- PubMed, biomedicine, biotechnology
- arXiv, Preprints: physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics
- The Multidisciplinary Preprint Platform/, supported by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland.
- Europe PMC, worldwide life sciences, biotechnology
- Scilit, Database of Preprints (Source:CrossRef und PubMed)
- SHARE, from the Open Science Framework
- bioRxiv, The Preprint Server for Biology
- ChemRxiv/, The Preprint Server for Chemistry
- CogPrints, Cognitive Science
- engrXiv Preprints
- PsyArXiv
- Social Science Research Network
3. Inquiry directly to the authors
Publishers like Elsevier and others allow their authors to share an article published in a subscription magazine with personally known students and colleagues, as the Elsevier Guidelines (view 13.06.2019 13:25) permit: „If you are an author, you may also share your Published Journal Article (PJA) privately with known students or colleagues for their personal use“. You can therefore legally receive a copy directly by contacting the authors. Using this way, however, there is no guarantee that the authors will react within a tolerable waiting time.
4. Order a interlibrary loan or as urgend delivery
Order journal articles directly via interlibrary loan. You don’t have an account yet? If you already have a library card, you can simply apply for access as a user: Form to apply for interlibrary loan. Once you have received access to interlibrary loan by e-mail, you can place your own orders, which normally cost 1.50 euros each. For copyright reasons, delivery has been made as a paper copy of varying quality – but usually within a few days.
In very urgent cases, a direct order could be an alternative, which will be delivered more quickly. In addition to the above-mentioned interlibrary loan, as a researcher at the TUHH (only staff!) you have the opportunity to provide the TU Library with
The University Library will carry out these orders for you and will also pay the costs.
As a rule, we receive paper copies or PDF files of scanned pages. In many cases, however, an original PDF from the publisher is also available at a correspondingly higher cost. A document delivery of this kind can then cost more than 50 € depending on the article, but this will be paid by the university library.