FAQ

How can I get PDFs for free?

You can often get a publication for free legally, also when the Library does not have a subscription. We made a list of the most used options.

  1. Staff and students of WUR can use the ordering service of the Library.
  2. Use Unpaywall: 25 million legal, Open Access articles
  3. DOAJ: The Directory of Open access Journals offers access to over 14.000 open access journals.
  4. Install the Open Access Button for free, legal research articles delivered instantly or automatically requested from authors.. You have to register.
  5. Install the Google Scholar Button. When you do not find a direct link in Google Scholar, try the link “All versions” for more options.
  6. WorldCat and WUR Library Search are also good sources to find free articles (choose the tab Articles).
  7. Some authors place a version of their papers on a personal webpage. These papers are easy to find with Google.
  8. Sign up for ResearchGate. You can find lots of articles here that have been uploaded by the authors.
  9. Science Open: 64 million (August 2020) publications
  10. At twitter.com you can use the hashtag #icanhazpdf and combine this with the title of the article or the DOI.
  11. When you find an article in a database, often an e-mail address of one of the authors is mentioned. Contacting the author is usually a quick way to obtain the full text.