Open access resources

When searching for open access content, there are several tools and databases that make articles, books and other research outputs openly available. Below is a selection of open access related online resources to get you started. Contact your Outreach Librarian for discipline-specific content.


Browser plugins

Installing one of the following browser plugins automatically searches for open access versions of articles wherever you are, on or off campus.

LibKey Nomad - available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi or Safari (Choose UNSW Library as your institution).

Unpaywall - available for Firefox and Chrome

Open Access Button - available for Firefox and Chrome
If an open access version is not available, this extension provides the option to request copy from authors.

Journal articles, book chapters and books

Library collection
Find peer-reviewed open access articles and journals in Library collection. UNSW Library provides access to open access content sources such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), BASE, and SciELO. Easily identify open access items in your search results by the OPEN ACCESS logo. Refine your results by selecting the Availability item Open Access.

CORE
Open access articles and research papers.

BASE
Indexes more than 130 million articles and more than 60% are open access.

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
More than 13,000 academic peer-reviewed books and chapters from hundreds of publishers.

Preprints

A preprint is an academic research output that has not yet undergone peer review or been published, and has been made available online.

Common practice in some disciplines, preprints can aid the prompt dissemination of outcomes, contribute to academic discourse and increase chances of early feedback and commentary from peers. There are preprint repositories for nearly all disciplines. A selection of these include:

  • arXiv.org
    arXiv.org is a preprint server for astrophysics, condensed matter, general relativity, high energy physics, mathematical physics, nuclear physics, general physics, quantum physics, mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computer science, electrical engineering, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, and economics.
  • Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
    RePEc is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in more than 100 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics and related sciences.
  • Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
    SSRN has access to worldwide social science research and is composed of a number of specialised research networks in each of the social sciences.
  • MedRxiv is a preprint server for the medical, clinical, and related health sciences.
  • SocArxiv is a preprint archive for the Social Sciences.
  • PsyArXiv is a preprint server for Psychology.

Published data sets

Open data sets are published by researchers, governments, NGOs and several other sources.

Research Data Australia
Data contributed by over 100 Australian research organisations, government agencies and cultural institutions.

Zenodo
Open science research data repository is Europe-based but open worldwide.