Loras College Library: Open Access: OA Resources

Directories

Want to see if there's an Open Access resource in your subject area (and there probably is)? Try here!

DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
It contains free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books
A directory of over 1900 peer-reviewed books from 61 publishers
OpenDOAR
A searchable Directory of Open Access Repositories world wide. Find a repository on your subject or in your area.
ROAR - Registry of Open Access Repositories
Has some overlap with OpenDOAR, but another place to find open access repositories.

Government Open Access

Many of the resources the U.S. Government produces are considered open access. Check these out!

ERIC - Education Resources Information Center
Education related materials including journal articles, books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers and other materials. It's about half full text.
Fed in Print
Research published by the Board of Governors and all 12 Federal Reserve Banks including core economic reviews, specialized regional and international publications, working papers, annual report essays, selected speeches, community development publications, and conference papers.
MedlinePlus
Consumer medical information.
PubChem
Information on the biological activities of small molecules.

PubMed This link opens in a new window
Biomedical and life sciences journal literature from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).

Subject Specific Open Access Resources

There are so many open access resources for finding journals, journal articles, books, and other materials that we can't possibly list them all, but here are a few of the biggest & best with specific coverage.

AgEcon
Agricultural & Applied Economics including working papers, conference papers, and journal articles.

ArXiv.org This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
Is it an open access database to over 1.4 million e-prints in physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, Statistics, Electrical Engineering and Systems Science, and Economics.

BMC Cell Biology
A peer-reviewed Cell Biology journal also indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, BIOSIS, CAS, EMBASE, Scopus, CABI, Thomson Reuters (ISI) and Google Scholar.
Documenta Mathematica
DOCUMENTA MATHEMATICA is open to all mathematical fields and is refereed in the traditional manner. It is indexed in Mathematical Reviews, Science Citation Index Expanded, Zentralblatt für Mathematik.
eLIFE
A collaboration between researchers and three influential funders of research in life science and biomedicine to advance science through effective research communication.
F1000Posters
F1000 Posters is a unique open access repository for posters across biology and medicine.

Open Humanities Press This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
As an open-access database, OHP publications are fully and rigorously peer reviewed, as it provides articles related to the humanities.
PLoS One This link opens in a new window
Peer-reviewed scientific and medical research. Includes articles from journals in biology, medicine, computational biology, genetics, pathogens, and neglected tropical diseases.
Social Science Research Network This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of openly-available social science research.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A free online encyclopedia of philosophy from "abduction" to "zombies." No articles here.

Interdisciplinary Open Access Resources

There are so many open access resources for finding journals, journal articles, and books that we can't possibly list them all. But here are a few of the biggest & best with interdisciplinary coverage.

DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
It contains free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

Hathi Trust
Pronounced "hah-tee." Over 8 million titles (including books & journals) 2.5 million of which are in the public domain. It was originally conceived as a back up of Google Books and has grown into a cooperative project to preserve library materials converted from print to digital.

OAIster This link opens in a new window
Why use this database?
OAIster is a multi-disciplinary union catalog of open access digital resources that was built by harvesting from open access collections worldwide. Includes digitized (scanned) books, journal articles, newspapers, manuscripts, texts, audio and video files, photographs, data sets, and theses.

OpenDOAR - Search
Though OpenDOAR is primarily a directory, they do offer a trial search which uses a Google Custom Search to search the contents of all the repositories in their directory.
ROAR Content Search
Though ROAR is primarily a directory, they do offer a trial search which uses a Google Custom Search to search the contents of all the repositories in their directory.