Some key open access sites:
The BASE service provides access to 56 million documents
CORE (COnnecting REpositories) aims to facilitate free access to scholarly publications distributed across many systems. CORE gives access to millions of scholarly articles aggregated from many Open Access repositories.
Site developed by the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton to support Eprints open source software. It provides free access to a wealth of resources including: technical support documents, faqs on self archiving for authors and an extensive directory of useful links.
Open Research Online is the Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs.
It is an Open Access resource that can be searched and browsed freely by members of the public.
Consortium led by the University of Nottingham which is investigating issues in the future of scholarly communication, focussing in particular on open access repositories. Key resources offered include:
Searchable listing of journals and publishers providing information on their policies regarding self-archiving and open access.
Summary of policies given by various research funders as part of their grant awards.
International consortium of research libraries which seeks to influence models of future scholarly communication to increase access and reduce financial pressure. Its website has online forums, newsletters and documents covering all aspects of open access.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Links to thousands of titles.
Wiki about open access hosted by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College . It relies on the OA community to help maintain and keep the links up to date. A key feature is The Open Access Bibliography
Comprehensive list of institutional and subject-based repositories worldwide. It is possible to cross-search the content to locate individual articles.
Based at the Department of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton, this provides free access to a bibliography of articles and reports that focus upon the impact of open access publishing upon citations. Aims to show that making articles open access increases the number of citations.
Free film and documentaries online
BFI Inview– British history in film
EU Screen – aims to offer a single point of access to over 30,000 items of programme content and complementary contextual information. The consortium includes partners from 20 European countries; UK partners include the BBC. You can explore by genre, including documentary, entertainment, new broadcast clips. Copyright information is available on the website.
FedFlix– Good business, science and world issues – free access to historic films from the American government.
FORA.tv – aims to provide an online forum for free access to lectures, webcasts and video films from independent producers, non-profit institutions and universities. Current partners include the Heritage Foundation; Chatham House; Cato Institution, Brookings Institution
JISC Digital Media – advice, guidance and training to the UK’s Further and Higher Education community on still and moving images. Website has tips on tracing and using images legally.
Public Information Films from the UK National Archive; a collection of 20th Century UK government films. They include public health promotion films.
TED – inspirational talks from world leaders in politics, information technology and academic fields.
Blog with more recommended LSE library links to film on ‘delicious’
Free working papers online
Working papers, pre-prints and technical reports are often useful sources of cutting edge research. In some subject areas, such as Economics, they are well-established means of publishing the latest research before it appears in mainstream journals.
Cross-search the open access repositories of thousands of universities worldwide. Many of these contain full text working papers alongside references to other journal articles, theses and reports. Full text is often available where copyright allows. Particularly useful for tracing references to research from developing nations.
Specific subject areas:
Arxiv – maths, statistics, physics, computer science
Business and Managementportal – Registered users may acess many full text reports and papers. other items can be viewed in the British library or purchased. Recently added: keynote market research reports executive summaries for free
Cogprints– psychology and cognitive sciences
Economists online – papers and abstracts from Europe and other areas of the world leading economists
Eldis– online library of information about international development studies includes many papers from NGOS
LSE Research online – the institutional repository for the London School of Economics and Political Science. It contains research produced by LSE staff, including journal articles, book chapters, books, working papers, conference papers and more.
Philpapers – online research in philosophy
Philosophy Education Resource Guide – links to over 40 philosophy resources
SSRN Working Papers – online library hosted by the Social Science Research Network. Comprised of subject specific networks which include: Health, Legal Scholarship, Accounting, Philosophy. The database may be searched free of charge. Full text access often requires a subscription