{"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":"2025-10-29T15:52:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:52:03","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 browser extensions<\/h3>\n<p>This tool finds legally available manuscript versions as well as final published articles when the journal allows it or if the journal is open access: <a href=\"https:\/\/unpaywall.org\/\">Unpaywall<\/a>.\u00a0Install 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. A lock icon appears on the right-hand side of an article, showing if an OA version is available.<\/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 MIT catalog<\/h3>\n<p>Data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/unpaywall.org\/\">Unpaywall<\/a> database of open access journals and repositories is integrated into the <a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/bartonplus\">MIT Libraries catalog<\/a>, which means an OA version of an article will appear as an option in search results if one is available. <a href=\"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/webofsciencegroup\/blog\/a-researchers-complete-guide-to-open-access-papers\/\">Unpaywall is also integrated<\/a> 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: October 29, 2025<\/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 browser extensions This tool finds legally available manuscript versions as well as final published articles when the journal allows it or if the journal is open access: Unpaywall.\u00a0Install the Chrome or Firefox extension to connect to open access versions of paywalled articles. A lock icon appears on the right-hand side of an article, showing if an [&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":67,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5181,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3736\/revisions\/5181"}],"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}]}}