Finding Open Access Journals, Books and Preprints
There are several ways to carry out a targeted search for Open Access publications.
Tools for searching literature
The following tools can support you in searching for Open Access literature:
For more tools, go to "Finding Literature" in the Open Science Tools Catalogue.
Filtering in general databases
In general literature, journal and article databases, you can use filter options to restrict your search to content that is readable free of charge. This is possible in the Electronic Journals Library (option "freely available"), in EconLit, or in EconBiz (contains articles from specialist journals, working papers (Open Access), books and book chapters, including RePEc and EconStor). In rankings such as the SCImago Journal & Country Rank and Web of Science (JCR), you can select the option "List only Open Access Journals."
Finding Open Access journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) specifically lists Open Access journals.
Finding Open Access books
The following projects are specifically dedicated to listing and making accessible Open Access monographs:
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
- Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN)
- Open Edition
Finding preprints
A preprint is a draft version of your work that has not yet undergone review – even if it may already have been submitted to a publisher in parallel. In practice, preprints are usually self-archived and distributed via central repositories; community members of these repositories are then notified and can comment on the uploaded content.
For an overview of the relevant specialist repositories and preprint servers, and how to search them, see Repositories for Literature Searching.