Online resources for University Alumni
The University Library has listed free resources on the internet which will be useful for alumni, local members of the library and members of the public
Open Access Publishing databases
The following resources all provide access to full-text, open access content:
- Directory of Open Access Journals: An online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
- Directory of Open Access Books: The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of open access books.
- COnnected REpositories: The mission of CORE is to aggregate all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public.
- Open Access Publishing in European Networks: The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences.
- Public Library of Science: A nonprofit publisher and advocate of open access research. All PLoS content is free to access, distribute, reuse and remix.
- Open Library of the Humanities: A charitable organisation dedicated to publishing open access scholarship with no author-facing article processing charges (APCs).
- Social Science Open Access Repository: SSOAR provides access to freely available journal articles and working papers.
- Social Science Research Network: SSRN is one of the largest repositories of freely accessible research papers in the social sciences.
Literature and information search tools
- Agricola The National Agricultural Library (NAL) holds the one of the world’s largest research libraries for agricultural, botany and forestry topics. The library catalogue can be searched with many articles available on-line.* From: U.S. National Agricultural Library
- Cancer Library This site contains comprehensive descriptions on research; background information, clinical trials, cancer statistics, results and findings. It also provides information on specific areas of research interest and funding opportunities. From: U.S. National Cancer Institute
- ERIC Information and materials on education related topics. ERIC has over 1 million records including journal articles, books, technical reports, research, conference papers and policy documents. Many full-text articles are accessible.* From: U.S. Department of Education
- Google Scholar will find many types of information, such as government reports, “grey literature” and journal articles, From: Google
- Mineralogy Database Mineral data and information such as data on crystal structures, X-Ray powder diffraction, chemical and physical properties, Dana's classification, Strunz classification, and listings of mineral species, and links to other sites. From: David Barthelmy
- PubMed is a health and biomedicine bibliographic database that includes 20 million citations from MEDLINE (the U.S. National Library of Medicine's database), science journals and on-line books. Its content covers as well as areas of. From: National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine
- SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Contains millions of records on astronomy, astrophysics and arXiv e-prints. Full-text search is available for much of the astronomical literature. Please note that all items are copyrighted by the publisher and are free for personal use only. From: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Toxnet and Toxline TOXNET (TOXicology Data NETwork) comprises a databases covering diseases, chemicals and drugs, and their environmental, health, safety and toxicology effects. Toxline is one of these databases offering over 4 million citations. From: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Websites with research publications and data
Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Science Database The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has created this portal to support researchers and practitioners searching for information related to alcohol research. It mainly offers access to citations and abstracts. From: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Earthnet Online A website for those interested in Earth Observation and the scientific and technical information produced and collected by the European Space Agency. The site includes mission information, data sets, research results and news. From: European Space Agency
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) As part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (http://www.embl.org/) EMBL-EBI provides freely available data and bio-informatics services to the science community. From: EMBL-EBI
Free Medical Journals This website from the medical literature group AMEDEO promotes access to free full text medical journals on the Internet. From: AMEDEO
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A website providing information and publications from the IPCC on climate change. From: IPCC
International Energy Agency (IEA) The IEA website is concerned with energy security, environmental awareness, economic development and communication of energy issues. Much of the information requires purchase but a limited number of items are free.* From: IEA
National Center for Biotechnology Information A website providing biomedical and genomic information including datasets, software and bibliographic information relating to science research and health. From: NCBI
National Institute of Standards and Technology: NIST publishes standards, technical information and measurement science related information to promote innovation, competitiveness and economic security and the quality of life in the U.S.A. From: U.S. Department of Commerce
Office of Scientific and Technical Information Collections of research results and scientific subject portals can be accessed from this web site. Scientific and technical information on energy related topics can be found in the Energy Citations Database and datasets and non-text information can found via the DOE Data Explorer. From: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
Science.gov A U.S. gateway created from an alliance of government science organizations. Users have access to 60 databases, over 2200 websites and 200 million pages of science information via the search facilities. From: Science.gov Alliance
Specialized Information Service A portal offering access to a number of information sites covering Toxicology, environmental health, chemistry, HIV/AIDS, disaster health, and topics relevant to specific communities and groups of people. From: U.S. Department for Health and Human Services
World Health Organization WHO web portal gives access to a data repository, statistical reports and information about global health concerns. From: WHO
Open access journals and books
These resources give free access to scientific scholarly publications. Many of publications have been peer-reviewed, editorially controlled, and are available without needing a subscription to access the articles.
Access to Research This service offers walk-in access to over 10 million academic papers from across the disciplines at participating public libraries. Access is available to members of the public, small businesses and independent researchers.
DOAB is the Directory of Open Access Books. It aims to make open access books more discoverable and invites academic publishers to submit metadata to increase the visibility and circulation of their publications. From: the OAPEN foundation
DOAJ is the Directory of Open Access Journals. It aims to list all open access scientific and scholarly journals that have a quality control system (e.g. peer review) in place. Disciplines covered range from humanities to engineering and science. From: DOAJNational Academies Press
NAP contains several thousand titles available for free download from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, National Research Council and other U.S. public bodies. From: National Academy of Sciences
PloS or the Public Library of Science is an open access publisher of peer reviewed journals and other resources. From: PLoS
OAPEN library A library of open access quality assured (e.g. peer reviewed) books available for download. The library is focused mainly on the humanities and social sciences. The books are published in a number of European languages. From: the OAPEN foundation
Open archives and repositories
Open archives and repositories are online databases of digital resources such as research archives and preprints. Preprints are usually the draft versions of an article before that is published in journals, at conferences, etc. The archives and repositories often contain media files and other data generally inaccessible to most internet users.
ArXiv Research papers available for download on topics from physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics disciplines. From: Cornell University Library
OAIster is a searchable catalogue of digital resources, including digitized books and articles, audio-files, films, images and datasets; this material that has been “harvested” from repositories around the world. From: OCLC
Research data repositories
The demand for secure and accessible storage of research data by academics, institutions and research funding bodies has resulted in a number of online resources to help people gain free access to the data behind research publications. - Databib A directory intended to help researchers find online data repositories from around the world. From: Databib
Registry of Research Data Repositories A registry of data repositories intended to assist researchers in identifying online data repositories from around the world. From: German Research Foundation
UK Data Service A collection of social and economic data owned by bodies such as the ONS, UK government, intergovernmental organisations and research institutes. Much of the data is held at the UK Data Archive. From: ESRC with contributions from the University of Essex and the University of Manchester
US Government Data Described as “The home of the U.S. Government’s open data” this website provides access to Federal, state and local data, tools and resources for it to be used in research, create web software and mobile apps and visualisations. From: U.S. General Services Administration
Patents and standards
Web pages and databases that provide free patent information that shows inventions that have already been protected; information on how to use other peoples’ patented inventions, or information on how to protect your own invention.
Espacenet provides access to over 80 million patents documents (dating back to 1836) from across the world, information on patent families and legal status information. From: European Patent Office
USPTO The Patent and Trademark Office patent database provides detailed information on issued patents and published applications from the USA. Full text download is available for many documents. From: United States Patent and Trademark Office
Statistics
data.gov.uk A searchable website that provides access to data sets that informs government policy and decision making. From: UK Government
Eurostat The official statistics office for the European Union. From: Eurostat
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) Official statistics and social research on Northern Ireland. From: NISRA
Office for National Statistics (ONS) ONS is the UK’s recognised official body for economic, social, health and education statistics. From: ONS.
Statistics in Scotland Links to official statistics in Scotland from the Scottish Government web pages. From: The Scottish Government
United Nations resources UNSD Statistical Databases provide mostly free social and economic data. From: United Nations Statistics Division
Reference Management Tools
Researchers, staff and students often make use of paid for reference management tools, like EndNote, during their University career. Other free online tools exist that offer similar functionality.
- Mendeley is a research management tool for desktop & web. You can also explore research trends and connect to other academics in your discipline. From: Mendeley