The Elusive Full Text Article
Clinicians and researchers are frustrated when they can't get full text articles. Unfortunately, most publishers' license agreements contain narrow definitions of "authorized users" that exclude alumni.
Like other libraries, the PCOM Library must restrict access to licensed content to current students, faculty, and employees.
The good news is that there is a large and growing body of high quality "open access" literature. Open access is precisely that: access is open to everyone without subscription fees or licensing.
This page identifies sources for high-quality full text. Take a look at the Top Clinical Titles - they are among the most highly cited and open access.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the National Institutes of Health is working on multiple fronts to aid in the COVID-19 response through new initiatives with the global publishing community and artificial intelligence researchers. NLM is expanding access to scientific papers on coronavirus for researchers, care providers, and the public, and for text-mining research. This work makes use of NLM’s PubMed Central® (PMC), a digital archive of peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences literature.
Top Clinical Titles
The Free Medical Journals site links to many core clinical titles. Many offer automatic table-of-content email alerts. Caveat: not all content is free and some sites require registration.
Full-Text Journals
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a database that provides free access to high-quality, peer-reviewed open-access journals across various academic fields. It promotes unrestricted access to scholarly research and lists journals that meet specific quality standards. The DOAJ is a trusted resource for researchers and students seeking reliable open-access content.
- HighWire Info, Lists, & LinksA division of the Stanford University Libraries, HighWire Press hosts the largest repository of free, full-text, peer-reviewed content, with 939 journals and over 2 million free, full-text articles online.
- Public Library of Science (PLOS)The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a nonprofit organization and open-access publisher that provides free, high-quality scientific research articles across a variety of disciplines, including biology, medicine, and environmental science. PLOS publishes several peer-reviewed journals, with a commitment to making scientific research freely accessible to everyone. Its most well-known journal is PLOS ONE, which covers a broad spectrum of science and medicine. PLOS aims to accelerate scientific discovery by removing barriers to access and promoting the open sharing of research findings.
- PubMed CentralPubMed Central (PMC) is a free, digital repository of full-text biomedical and life sciences journal articles. It is maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). PubMed Central provides access to a vast collection of peer-reviewed research articles from a wide range of journals in fields such as medicine, biology, and public health.
While PubMed contains bibliographic information (citations and abstracts), PubMed Central offers the full-text versions of many of these articles, making it a key resource for researchers, clinicians, and students who need free access to scientific papers. PMC helps promote the sharing of research findings and supports the NIH Public Access Policy, which mandates that research funded by the NIH be made publicly available.