Reader Response -- Pay and Free Databases

Wow! I got sixty BILLION responses e-mailed to me about this particular reader request -- that's right, every person on the planet e-mailed me about ten times. Well, maybe it just felt that way. Anyhow.

After CL said, "I am interested in finding databases of searchable academic journal articles (unlimited by topic). Do any readers know of any such databases? Can be free or fee-based" most readers said, "Eegad! CL, get thee to a library! Thy friendly librarian can help thee and all thou wilt need is a library card. Gadzooks!" Or something.

Point taken. Some other folks did provide more ideas, though: Reader C says, " I do regular searches for scientific journal articles on the following sites: Scirus ( www.scirus.com ) pulls up general web sites as well as journal articles, Ingenta ( www.ingenta.com ), and Infotrieve ( www.infotrieve.com ). These are all databases of journal articles available for sale in many different subjects. Good for searching, then checking availability at nearby libraries/researcher home pages or even purchasing from Ingenta! Science Direct ( www.sciencedirect.com )is a similar commercial provider of journal articles, with links to publisher websites. MedBioWorld has a list of Bioscience journals by subject at http://www.sciencekomm.at/journal.html . "

Reader I-forgot-to-record-his-initials says, "Fulltext Sources Online attempts to list all e-journals available from aggregators and other fee sites. It also identifies those journals with archives (free or fee) online. This is a subscription service. http://www.fso-online.com/ . A free service that does something similar is "jake," a tweaked version of which is at http://jake.openly.com/ . You may have to know the title."

Reader KD opines, " Two that come to mind are Periodical Abstracts (has many full text articles and covers more that just academic articles but has good across the board coverage) and Academic Search Premier (very similar but includes options to search only full text and only scholarly publications). Of the two, I prefer Periodical Abstracts."

Reader BM (and PB, and lots of other people) recommended ESCOhost Academic Search Elite and Academic Search Premier at http://www.epnet.com/titlelists.asp . Meanwhile Reader EB said, " You might try < www.allacademic.com> You can search by subject, title, author or browse journal titles."

Reader TW recommended http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~hierl/wess/igwep/IWEPContent.html and http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~p1ges/zfhm/zfhm_na.html and notes "The latter is a fabulous listing of historical periodicals and is a great time saver trying to trace articles; it has an impressive search engine."

Reader AD gets all bibliographic on us with, "Lewis, Sandy. "There is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch: Freely Accessible Databases for the Public." Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship: 29 (Winter 2001). Available: http://www.istl.org/01-winter/internet.html "

Reader CC and others recommended ProQuest ( http://www.proquest.com ) while reader VM recommended " http://www.jstor.org -- Great full text resource that many colleges and universities offer students, and some public libraries. Check web site for participating institutions in your area. For individual participation instructions go to this URL: http://www.jstor.org/about/individual.html ."

Reader WW says, "This might help: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/simplesearch ," while reader PM also goes for brevity, recommending, " http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/ets/ ."

Reader DG checks in and as usual has a lot to offer: " http://www.in-cites.com/index.html incites provides a behind the scenes look at the scientists, journals, institutions, nations, and papers selected by ISI Essential Science Indicators Web product. -- http://www.the-scientist.com/hotpapersarchive.htm
The Scientist :: Hot Papers Archives -- FOS (for links) http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html --- http://bubl.ac.uk/link/index.html BUBL LINK / 5:15 - academic catalog (European focus) organized by Dewey number and subject terms."

Finally, Reader PS checks in with three URLs: http://www.csum.edu/library/articles.htm , http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/databases/resource_type_16.html , and http://www.back2college.com/library/acadres.htm .

Thanks to everyone who responded!

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