Skip to Main Content

Finding Free Health Sciences Literature

Finding Specific Articles

Looking for a copy of a particular article? Try these tips for finding it.

Institutional Repositories

Many universities and research institutes have an archive that holds the work done by their researchers. Check to see which institutions the author(s) who wrote the article you need are affiliated with, and then check for a repository. You can often find the repository through the library's website or through an online search. Here are a few examples:

Interlibrary Loan

Even if you are no longer affiliated with an academic library, you will hopefully have a nearby library you can use. If you are working in a hospital, ask about their hospital library. If you use a public library, they may have an interlibrary loan system that will allow you to request books and journal articles. If you have a local academic library, they may allow you to access some services as a community member. Check their website for policies or stop by and ask a librarian.

Unsure what libraries are in your area? Search via WorldCat. You can even filter by type of library on the left side.

Searching the internet

You can look for the article you need online:

  • Search for an article in a search engine by putting the article title in quotes. The search engine will just look for that title.
  • If you use Google, you can also use the advanced search to tell it to just look for PDFs (or any format you're interested in).
  • You can also check in Google Scholar to see if there is full text available for the article(s) you need.

Email the author

  • Google the author and see if they have a website - some may have copies of their articles posted
  • There should be an email for the corresponding author on the article record. Contact the author, explain a little about who you are and why you'd like to read the paper, and then see if they have a copy they could email you. See this example email text from Yale.

Browser Plug-Ins

There are also browser plug-ins that will look for PDFs for you, Unpaywall and the OA Button.

A note on these plug-ins: Sometimes unpaywall and the OA button don't recognize that there's a PDF or full text of an article on the page you're looking at it. It's always worth it to take a minute or so to look at the article record and make sure there isn't a link to the article that you missed at first glance.

" "Unpaywall is an open source browser plug-in. It will look for full text in repositories, open access journals, etc. If it finds the article, the lock icon will turn green. Just click the lock and it will download the PDF for you.

" "

The Open Access button is another browser plug-in. It works slightly differently than Unpaywall. You can enter the DOI or citation you're looking for on their website, or you can click the OA button on your browser and it will look for the full text. If it doesn't find it, it will prompt you to enter your email address so it can email the author for access.