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Alternative Article Access Options

Most of the time the UW Libraries will have immediate access to the articles you are looking for. If we do not have immediate access, there are several alternatives you can try to obtain a copy of the article.

Check the UW Libraries for Immediate Access

Use UW Libraries Search to find an article by:

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Get it From the Library

Interlibrary Loan

Current UW students, faculty, and staff can request articles delivered through our Interlibrary Loan service. Most articles requested through Interlibrary Loan are delivered within a few hours but may take up to two business days.

Article Galaxy Scholar

Article Galaxy Scholar is a service that allows UW students, faculty, and staff to order articles from journals that the UW Libraries does not have subscription access. The articles are delivered rapidly, often within minutes, and the service is available 24/7.

 

Find an Open Access Copy

Approximately 40% of research articles published every year are available open access. These tools can help you find an openly accessible copy of the article.

OAbutton

 Open Access Button (OA Button)

OA Button allows you to plug in an article’s URL, DOI, title, or other information to find free and legal open access versions. OA Button also offers Chrome and Firefox extensions. Clicking on the extension button from a paywalled article initiates a search for that article and, where available, instantly delivers free access. When free access is not found, OA Button can contact the corresponding author directly to help them make a self-archived version available.
unpaywall Unpaywall

Find open-access versions of publications from over 50,000 publishers and repositories. Use the browser extension to auto-search article DOIs.

endnoteclick

 Endnote Click (formerly Kopernio)

A Chrome/Firefox browser plug-in from Clarivate Analytics that offers free access to over 20,000 open access sources, as well as providing access via Purdue institutional subscriptions.

Search for Open Access Content

  • Google Scholar: After searching for an article in Google Scholar, on the result list, look for All versions. You may find a free full text version there. To check for UW access automatically via Google Scholar, be sure to set up your library!
  • PubMed Central: Free digital repository that archives open access full-text scholarly articles that have been published in biomedical and life sciences journals.
  • Preprints and Subject Repositories
  • arXiv – Articles in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Preprints in biology.
  • bioRxiv – Preprints in biology.
  • ChemRxiv – Preprints in chemistry and related areas.
  • medRxiv – Preprints in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences.
  • CogPrints – Self-archive papers in any area of psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics, and many areas of computer science.
  • e-LIS – International digital repository for Library and Information Science (LIS), including Communication.
  • IDEAS (RePEc) – Bibliographic database based on RePEc (Research Papers in Economics). Includes published articles and freely available preprints and working papers in economics.
  • OSF Preprints – Multidisciplinary preprint repository.
  • Social Science Research Network – Open access preprint community specializing primarily in social sciences, including economics, law, corporate governance, and humanities. (Owned by Elsevier)

Use Your Network