{"id":3736,"date":"2020-01-13T10:19:13","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T14:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/?page_id=3736"},"modified":"2026-08-11T11:33:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T11:33:56","slug":"find-oa-articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/publishing\/find-oa-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"How to find openly accessible articles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Below are tips for finding openly accessible versions of articles &#8212; that is, non-paywalled articles you can read and download no matter where you are. Depending on where you search, articles may be the final published version, the accepted manuscript, or a preprint.<strong>*<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Install a browser extension<\/h3>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/unpaywall.org\/\">Unpaywall<\/a> tool finds legally available manuscript versions as well as final published articles when the journal allows it or if the journal is open access. Install the <a href=\"https:\/\/unpaywall.org\/products\/extension\">Chrome<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/unpaywall\/\">Firefox<\/a> extension to connect to open access versions of paywalled articles.<\/p>\n<h3>Search open repositories &amp; portals<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Searching for articles through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Google Scholar<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> may find them in well-indexed repositories. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Google Scholar: Beneath an article\u2019s title and short excerpt is a list of links, including \u201cSave\u201d and \u201cCite.\u201d If Google finds other versions, there will also be a link to \u201cAll versions.\u201d Click this to find OA versions of the peer-reviewed article in repositories like MIT&#8217;s DSpace. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/intl\/en\/scholar\/help.html#access\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">More information on Google Scholar &amp; article searches<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Examples of repositories to search directly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">arXiv<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (preprint repository)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/osf.io\/preprints\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">OSF Preprints<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (preprint repositories like SocArXiv or AfricArXiv)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/dspace.mit.edu\/\">DSpace@MIT<\/a> (includes an <a href=\"https:\/\/dspace.mit.edu\/handle\/1721.1\/49433\">OA articles collection<\/a> with accepted manuscripts &amp; final published versions)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">PubMed Central<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (biomedical and life sciences archive from NIH; includes accepted manuscripts and final published versions)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/index.cfm\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social Science Research Network<\/a> (preprint repository)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Find OA articles via the Libraries<\/h3>\n<p>Data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/unpaywall.org\/\">Unpaywall<\/a> database of open access journals and repositories is integrated into the MIT Libraries discovery platform, which means an OA version of an article will appear as an option in search results if one is available. Unpaywall is also integrated into <a href=\"https:\/\/libguides.mit.edu\/webofsci\">Web of Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Ask the author<\/h3>\n<p>Most publishers allow authors to responsibly share their own publications. The author\u2019s name and institution are usually shown on the preview page of the article.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>*What is the difference between article versions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">accepted, or <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">author\u2019s final, manuscript, is the version of the article that has been peer-reviewed and accepted by the journal but is not in the publisher\u2019s formatting<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here\u2019s an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dspace.mit.edu\/bitstream\/handle\/1721.1\/148292\/Fluidflow_SPE_v1.pdf?sequence=2&amp;isAllowed=y\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">example<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">of an accepted manuscript.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">By comparison, the final published version is the article as it appears in the journal. Here\u2019s an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1021\/jacs.2c01401\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">example<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. (Unless the article or journal is open access, most publishers do not allow authors to post the final published version in repositories or on their websites.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The content is the same in both the accepted and final published versions; both include changes made after peer review. Preprints are not peer reviewed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px\">Last updated: August 11, 2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px\">Acknowledgements: Thanks to the UCLA Library for this useful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.library.ucla.edu\/news\/uc-ends-negotiations-elsevier\">web page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Below are tips for finding openly accessible versions of articles &#8212; that is, non-paywalled articles you can read and download no matter where you are. Depending on where you search, articles may be the final published version, the accepted manuscript, or a preprint.* Install a browser extension The Unpaywall tool finds legally available manuscript versions as well as final published articles when the journal allows it or if the journal is open access. Install the Chrome or Firefox extension to connect to open access versions of paywalled articles. Search open repositories &amp; portals Searching for articles through Google Scholar may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1852,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3736","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3736"}],"version-history":[{"count":74,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5395,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3736\/revisions\/5395"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}