Research Guides: Alumni Library Services: Free articles

Publicly Available Online Materials

A warm thank you to the librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for initially compiling this list of freely-available electronic databases of a scholarly nature. If full-text is not immediately available, try taking your citation over to your local public library to see if their Interlibrary Loan staff can help find it for you.

Agricola
The National Agricultural Library, as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, produces the AGRICultural OnLine Access database. This database contains records for books and articles on agriculture and its allied disciplines.
Anthropological Index Online (AIO)
The Anthropological Index Online is the anthropological index to current periodicals held in the Anthropology Library at the Centre for Anthropology of the British Museum.
BioMed Central Journals
BioMed Central publishes over 245 peer-reviewed open access journals which are available to the public for free. BioMed specializes in subjects related to science, technology and medicine. Areas of interest to social science researchers include public health, substance abuse, and health care policy.
DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks
Theatre majors rejoice! DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks allows scholars and students to investigate the publishing, printing, and marketing of English Renaissance drama in ways not possible using any other print or electronic resource. An easy-to-use and highly customizable search engine of every playbook produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the beginning of printing through 1660.

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DEEP provides a wealth of information about the original playbooks, their title-pages, paratextual matter, advertising features, bibliographic details, and theatrical backgrounds.

Directory of Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals was launched in 2003 at Lund University, Sweden, with 300 open access journals and today contains ca. 9000 open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities.

English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC)
The English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC) is a bibliographic database which, when complete, will contain a record for every letterpress item printed in England or any of its dependencies, in any language, from 1473-1800, or in English anywhere else in the world during that period.

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In order to increase access to these items, each record includes a list of all libraries known to hold copies of the item, as well as references to microfilm and other facsimile versions.
ERIC
For all you educators out there... Maintained by the U.S. Department of Education, the Educational Resources Information Center provides free access to more than 1.4 million citations of journal articles and other education-related materials. When available, links to full text are included.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar allows you to broadly search for scholarly literature. Results include articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court documents. On the Advanced Scholar Search page it's possible to limit your search by journal, date, or subject.
Highwire Press Free
HighWire Press is the largest archive of free full-text science, from Stanford University. The database includes over 2.3 million free full-text articles and more than 7 million total articles. There are 46 sites with free trial periods, and 67 completely free sites.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a digital archive of more than 1,500 academic journals and other scholarly content. JSTOR Register & Read is a program offering free, read-online access to individuals who register for a MyJSTOR account. Register & Read includes approximately 75 journals.
Making of America
Making of America, from the University of Michigan, is a digital library of primary sources about "American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." Subject areas include education, psychology, American history, and sociology.
Medline Plus
Produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, MedlinePlus includes 730 over health topics pages, information from over 1,350 organizations, and over 18,000 links to authoritative health information.
National Criminal Justice Reference Center
Contains more than 3,500 full-text publications and over 210,000 summaries of publications from the NCJRS Abstracts Database. "Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide."
PILOTS
PILOTS contains over 45,000 article citations about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health conditions caused by traumatic events. Produced by the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and sponsored by the United States Department of Veteran Affairs.
POPLINE
POPLINE provides access to 350,000 carefully selected publications and resources related to family planning and reproductive health. Includes links to free, full-text documents and the ability to limit a search to peer-reviewed journal articles.

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POPLINE is maintained by the K4Health Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
The Public Library of Science is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy group. Everything they publish is freely accessible to the public. Research ranges from biology to medicine to tropical diseases.
PubMed
Also produced by NLM and NIH, PubMed contains over 22 million citations dating back to the mid-1960s in the the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences.
Science.gov
Gateway to selected, authoritative science resources from US government agencies and departments. Search or browse selected science websites, or use the 'index' to view resources on selected topics.
Social Science Research Network
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a database of social science research and is composed of various specialized research networks. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 464,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 376,900 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Suburban Public Libraries

Use your local library card for access to online resources, many of which are not available through the RU Library. Public libraries will generally subscribe to Ancestry & Chilton's (for in-library use), Heritage Quest, Morningstar, ValueLine Investment Survey, and Reference USA, among others.

Arlington Heights Memorial Library
Your AHML library card allows you to remotely access databases devoted to many topics, including: Antiques, Law, Auto Repair, Genealogy, Health, Business, History, Careers, Science, Consumer Info, and Investments.
Bloomingdale Public Library
Search the premium research databases from BPL, including: Consumer Reports, Business Insights: Global, and the Chicago Tribune historical edition.
Elk Grove Village Public Library
All databases, except where indicated (Databases with a purple dot indicate that they are accessible only from the Library), are for home use with a valid Elk Grove Village Public Library card.
Mount Prospect Public Library
Do research through the MPPL guides, which include Business, Community Info, and Consumer online resources. Features Business Source Complete, S&P NetAdvantage, and New York Times Historical.
Popular Creek Public Library District
Search the PCPLD online databases, including: Mango Languages & Westlaw (in-library use).
Rolling Meadows Library
Check out the RML featured online databases, including: Business Insights: Essentials, S&P NetAdvantage, and Ancestry.
Roselle Public Library District
Enjoy the RPL's 'premium' subscription resources, including Mango Languages and World Book Web.
Schaumburg Township District Library
Use your STDL library card for access to such databases as Business Source Complete, Kompass, and TableBase.