Resource of the Week #64: Some Resources for Obtaining Articles

Hello again. Here’s a situation that might be familiar: There’s a journal article that you want to read. But the article isn’t openly accessible now. And your institution’s library doesn’t seem to have it.

Here are a few resources or approaches that can help in such situations.

One of these resources, which is from the publisher Taylor & Francis, gives researchers from emerging regions temporary access to its journals. The resource is called STAR, for Special Terms for Authors & Researchers.

Some other ideas are the following:

• Consult a librarian at your institution. If you’re in an INASP partner country, the librarian may be able to help you access journals available through INASP. Or maybe he or she can help you find the article through other literature services or interlibrary loan.
• See whether the author has a website or the author’s institution has an institutional repository. Some articles are available at such websites.
• Perhaps e-mail the author. Many authors are glad to send articles to researchers requesting them.
• If you try everything else and still can’t get the article, maybe see whether a colleague such as an AuthorAID mentor can obtain it.

Until the next post—

Barbara