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Libraries at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Open Access: Finding OA Content

Description of OA publishing

OA content using LibKey Link and Nomad

LibKey Link (provided by the RPI Libraries, and part of BrowZine by Third Iron) provides easy access to library-subscription content, and has an affiliated browser extension called LibKey Nomad .

In addition to identifying and facilitating retrieval of subscribed content, LibKey Nomad analyzes data sources to optimize OA linking to articles in Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and other internet browsers and search engines. 

Installing the LibKey Nomad browser extension is easy. Visit libkeynomad.com, and click the icon for your browser. Your browser will ask you to confirm. Choose your institution on the resulting LibKey interface and you're done!

See the video for a demonstration of LibKey Nomad in action, and instructions for another method of installation using the Google webstore.

Directories, platforms, databases

Search directories for (also see the Open Repositories tab).

Directories:

  • OpenDOAR - a quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. Search or browse the thousands of repositories.
  • DOAJ - the Directory of Open Access Journals
  • DOAB - the Directory of Open Access Books
  • OAIster - catalog of over 50 million records representing OA content from collections worldwide
  • Unpaywall - also integrated into the Scopus database (linked below)

 

Many databases and journal platforms include an Open Access facet or limiter on their search interface.

Article status

When searching for OA content it is important to bear in mind the status of the work:

Preprint - draft before peer-review

Post-print - draft after peer-review

Published - final version