Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge has a rich network of libraries that can advise you when you cannot obtain the resources you need.

Cambridge LibGuides

LibGuides is your starting-point for locating and using library resources both in Cambridge and available online.

Articles and journals

This page provides an iDiscover search box for article searching and links to make an Inter-Library Loan request or ask for help.

iDiscover Citation Linker

Use Citation Linker to find a specific journal article, journal or book by citation information. For best results, include a title, ISSN, ISBN, DOI or PMID.

Library Hub Discover

You can use Library Hub Discover to find out, in a single search, if the UK’s National Libraries (including the British Library), many university libraries, and specialist research libraries, may hold the book, journal, or other resource you need.

Office of Scholarly Communication

The OSC provides expert help and advice for all your research needs.

CamGuides

CamGuides is designed to help Masters and Undergraduate students prepare for studies in Cambridge, with a focus on some of the academic and information practices and skills that students commonly engage in, or require, for their degrees.

Humanities Commons

An open access online community serving the needs of humanities scholars engaged in teaching and research, focused on providing "a space to discuss, share, and store cutting-edge research and innovative pedagogy".

ResearchGate

By registering onto ResearchGate, an author is invited to upload a copy of any article that ResearchGate finds the author has published. As the number of authors joining ResearchGate has grown, the networking site has become a major resource for searching for an article otherwise unavailable behind a subscription paywall. ResearchGate issues guidance for authors about publishers' restrictions on what authors can do in terms of uploading articles to ResearchGate, but this does not mean all articles uploaded are compliant with those restrictions as the site is essentially unmoderated.

Mendeley

The academic networking site Mendeley is seeking to promote sharing of articles, and at the same time doing this legally by encouraging authors to check publishers' sharing policies. Specifically Mendeley promotes on its HOW CAN I SHARE IT site a number of scholarly sharing networks (SCNs), of varying degress of openness

academia.edu

You can join academia.edu if you have an academic email stem so as to be able to create a profile. Academia.edu includes services enabling researchers to view deep analytics around the impact of their research and track the research of academics they follow. In addition. Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers and is a potential source for locating articles not available elsewhere.

Contacting the author

The majority of publishers permit the author to “responsibly share” their own publications which means that the author can share the published version of the article privately with colleagues in academia for the colleague's personal (reading) use. Publishers provide their policies on responsible sharing via their websites (see for example Elsevier's policy). You can contact the author directly to ask for a PDF. Sherpa/Romeo can be used as a check on the current license terms for the journal in question.

Dissem.in

Though not specifically a source for locating artilces, participation in Dissem.in will benefit the academic community at large. As an author, Dissem.in will locate your papers that lie behind subscription paywalls and helps you to upload them in one click to an open repository. The service has been designed by CAPSH (Committee for the Accessibility of Publications in Sciences and Humanities), a French nonprofit association promoting open access to academic publications.

Twitter

Twitter is a means for many authors to get their research out there, and has also become a means by which articles can be requested, using the hashtag #icanhazpdf with a link to the publication you need.