Finding Free Literary Resources: Directories to Open Access Scholarship

Check the easy-to-use interactive  Library Basics Tutorial to find out what we have, where to find it, how to access it, and what services we offer you.

NEED HELP?

During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the library will provide online reference services. Access reference services as follows:

• Use the popout chat window that appears on the Library's homepage during the hours that reference services are available.
• At any time, you may type a question to be answered by a librarian.  Type your question right under Need Help? on the Library's homepage  
• Make a personal one-on-one research appointment with a librarian.
• Or use the buttons below to quickly hat with a librarian or type us a question.

JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals  (DOAJ)

Provides access to high quality, open access peer-reviewed (scholarly) journals. All retrieved content is freely downloadable.

Unpaywall

Available as an extension for Chrome and Firefox, Unpaywall searches its database of almost 18 million Open Access research articles. If the article you find is available for free download, a green icon (  ). will appear. Click on that icon and the full text  of the article will open.

BOOKS

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)

a finding tool for locating academic, peer-reviewed Open Access books.These books can be freely downloaded.The link provided here goes directly to books in languages and literatures. You will notice that not all books are in English, but you have the capability of searching.the entire database. Try doing an Advanced Search.

Publishers of OA Books

a list of publishers of Open Access books, along with brief descriptions of the specialty of each publisher.

Google Books

Google Books can be used to locate a wide variety of books. You can get the full text of some books for free. For other books, you can only get a "preview." In any case, you can use it to identify books you may want to try to locate at Hofstra, your public library, or through Interlibrary Loan. Locate some  The Internet Archive has a collection of freely available, downloadable Google Books.

REPOSITORIES

OpenDOAR

a directory of academic,quality-controlled Open Access repositories. Repositories are digital collections of data, research and other intellectual products of university communities or other institutions. The content of repositories is sometimes, but not always, Open Access. The repositories in the OpenDOAR database are Open Access.