Database Search Services

Digital Library Program Online Resources

Databases with Unrestricted Access

*INASP(PERI) http://www.inasp.info/peri/free.html

(No passwords are required)

There is already a wealth of online free and open access materials available. Some important sites, which will also lead you to other sources include; African Journals OnLine , AGRIS, AGRICOLA, Algebraic & Geometric Topology, American Medical Association (AMA), American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Analytical Chemistry Web Resources, ArXiv, Association for Information Systems, Behavioural and Brain Sciences, Bentham Science, Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress), Best of Science and MORE...

Open Access Online Resources

There is a wealth of free resources available on the Internet. This listing provides a link to some of them, selected for relevance to researchers in developing and transitional countries. (Please note that the list is not intended as a comprehensive catalogue, but as an indication of the type of material available.)

1. General

        Multi-disciplinary

2. Subject Specific

        Agriculture

        Biology &Life Science

        Chemistry

        Engineering & Technology

        Environment

        Information & Communication Technologies (ICTS)

        Mathematics & Statistics

        Medicine & Health Sciences

        Physics

        Science General

        Social Sciences

3. Complementary Programmes

AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) 
AGORA is an initiative to provide free or low-cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to the students and researchers of qualifying not-for-profit public institutions in developing countries. Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the goal of AGORA is to increase the quality and effectiveness of agricultural research, education and training in low-income countries, and in turn, to improve food security.  Currently AGORA provides access to over 500 journals from the world's leading academic publishers.

HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative)  
HINARI provides free or very low cost online access to 2300 major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, non-profit and academic institutions in the health sector in 113 developing countries.

1. GENERAL                                                                            

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY

African Journals OnLine (AJOL)  
A programme of INASP - the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications - AJOL promotes the awareness and use of African-published journals in the sciences, medicine, agriculture, humanities and social sciences by providing access to tables of contents (TOCs) and abstracts on the Internet, links to full text (if available) plus document delivery of paper articles, subsidised (to less developed countries). AJOL already includes 200 journals published in Africa. Journals are accepted on the basis of their quality of content and proven record of regular publication.

Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) 
The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) makes its current journals freely available to researchers in the developing world. Interested parties should send a request on institutional letterhead. Details of titles can be found at

Bioline International 
Bioline International is a not-for-profit electronic publishing service committed to providing access to quality research journals published in developing countries. Explicit goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap. Publishes in the following areas: health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development. Features 30 peer-reviewed journals from Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe. Many journals are available free of charge.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)  
Developed by Lund University Libraries and supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute( http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/ ) along with SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, ( http://www.arl.org/sparc ), the directory contains information on open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. There are now 1148 journals in the directory of which 310 journals are searchable on article level with 54661articles are included in the DOAJ service. The service will continue to grow as new journals are identified.

EIFL
eIFL.net is an independent foundation that strives to lead, negotiate, support and advocate for the wide availability of electronic resources by library users in transition and developing countries. Its main focus is on negotiating affordable subscriptions on a multi-country consortial basis, while supporting the enhancement of emerging national library consortia in member countries.

Electronic Journal Miner 
Search for e-journals at this site using keywords, or browse e-journals by title or by LC subject headings; you can limit searches to (i) free publications, (2) peer-reviewed publications. Hosted by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. The database currently contains 6,960 titles. An excellent resource.

Electronic Journals Library
The Electronic Journals Library is a service offered by the University Library of Regensburg to facilitate the use of scholarly journals on the Internet. At the moment, it contains 19540 titles, among them 2195 online-only journals, covering all subjects. 7414 journals can be read free-of-charge. Currently 264 libraries and research institutions make use of this service

Electronic Supply of Academic Publications to and from universities in developing regions' (ESAP) 
A project of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) in cooperation with the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), SAP aims to set up a sustainable electronic document delivery systems for scholarly publications between universities in the North and the South as well as on a South-South basis, and thus assist in the supply of academic publications to as well as from the developing world.

INASP Links & Resources Access to information 
The INASP Links & Resources section provides a quick-access guide to selected Web sites and Internet resources that will be of special interest to the library and information science communities, and to scientists and publishers in developing countries. In particular it was designed to assist organisations involved in electronic networks for development, and those who are thinking of moving to an electronic environment for scholarly communication. However, each section contains links to a large number of additional free resources.

 http://www.inasp.info/links/contents.html

InformationR.net
The journals and newsletters listed here all include at least a sample of papers or news items that are freely accessible. Sites that simply provide the contents lists of journals that are not freely accessible are not listed.

Online Books 
Founded and edited by John Mark Ockerbloom and hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Library, Online Books is a website that facilitates access to 20,000 books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all. Users can search and browse by New Listings, Author, Title and Subject.

Project Gutenberg
This project digitises books which are in the public domain and puts them online free of charge. It was founded in 1971 and has so far published 7,500 e-books. Gutenburg is aiming for 10,000 by the end of this year and a million by the end of 2016. Please visit this website to view the e-books

Survey of Scientific and Technological Information Needs in Less-Developed and Developing Countries
This International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Section of Science and Technology Libraries Web sitebrings together journal articles, publications, reports, conference proceedings, research, and Web sites on the needs of scientific and technological libraries in less-developed and developing countries. The literature survey includes both the activities of scientific and technological libraries as well as the needs of scientists and technologists and the implication on libraries. Due to its multi-disciplinary nature and the number of publications, this survey cannot include all relevant literature; its aim is to include representative literature covering all pertinent aspects and disciplines. Geographic coverage includes Africa, Asia, and South America. Languages concentrate on the five official IFLA languages: English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. The literature search focuses on the fields of library and information science, and the subject disciplines of computer science, physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and geology

UNESCO 
The UNESCO catalog lists over 100,000 UNESCO documents and provides access to the full text of many of these.

2. SUBJECT SPECIFIC                                                      

AGRICULTURE

AGRIS
AGRIS is the international information system for the agricultural sciences and technology. It was created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1974, to facilitate information exchange and to bring together world literature dealing with all aspects of agriculture.

AGRICOLA 
AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is a bibliographic database of citations to the agricultural literature created by the National Agricultural Library and its co-operators. Production of these records in electronic form began in 1970, but the database covers materials in all formats, including printed works from the 15th century. Coverage: 1978-present.

Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) 
Free or low-cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences for public academic institutions in developing countries.

INASP Rural Development Directory  
This Directory provides access to a wide range of information on rural development. It contains profiles of more than 450 international, regional and national networks and organisations around the globe, and is particularly concerned to promote South-South information dissemination and interchange. Each entry provides contact details and a brief description of the organisation, highlighting its objectives, activities, subject areas of interest and geographical coverage. In addition there are details of the information provided by the organisations, including newsletters, journals or online documents. It also includes a separate section, which lists relevant directories, gateway sites and portals.

Food and Fertilizer Technology Center (FFTC)
The FFTC is an international information centre serving small-scale farmers in the Asian and Pacific region. Its website and database provides several hundred technical publications on tropical agriculture, with an emphasis on low-cost technology for small farms. Materials include books, extension bulletins and extension leaflets, and articles on major problems facing farmers in the region. The full text of all publications (in a choice of either HTML or PDF format) is available free of charge.

Info Finder 
In collaboration with Future Harvest Centers, CGIAR and FAO/WAICENT, the Info Finder allows you to search for digital information on the Future Harvest Centers', CGIAR and FAO web sites. Contains full text documents and links to websites.

TEEAL 
The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library is a comprehensive full-text collection of core journals in the field of over 140 agricultural and related sciences. TEEAL is incorporated in AGORA

BIOLOGY AND LIFE SCIENCE

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)  
The eleven journals of the American Society for Microbiology are now available full-text online without cost through PubMedCentral. Embargo periods range from 6-12 months.

Biogate
Compiled by staff at the Library of Ecology, the National Resource Library of Biological Sciences at Lund University in Sweden, this is a portal to "our 1,000 best links in the biological sciences." Search, or browse by 11 broad subject categories in the biological sciences, which are divided into sub-groups showing the number of links for each.

BioOne 
BioOne is the product of collaboration between scientific societies, libraries, academe and the private sector and brings to the Web an aggregation of the full-texts of high-impact bioscience research journals. Most of BioOne's titles are published by small societies and non-commercial publishers, and, until now, have been available only in printed form. BioOne provides integrated, cost-effective access to a thoroughly linked information resource of interrelated journals focused on the biological, ecological and environmental sciences.

E-BioSci 
E-BioSci is EMBO's initiative to set up a platform providing services relating to access and retrieval of digital information in the life sciences, ranging from bibliographic or factual data to published full text.

Electronic Journal of Biotechnology 
Electronic Journal of Biotechnology is an international scientific electronic journal which publishes papers from all areas related to Biotechnology. Coverage ranges from molecular biology and the chemistry of biological process to aquatic and earth environmental aspects, as well as computational applications, policy and ethical issues directly related to Biotechnology. EJB operates a policy that permits the widest possible distribution of information and use, without profit and free of charge by the scientific and academic community.

GenBank
Established in 1988 as a national resource for molecular biology information, NCBI creates public databases, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analysing genome data, and disseminates biomedical information - all for the better understanding of molecular processes affecting human health and disease.

Journal of Biology
The Journals of Biology is a new international journal, published by BioMed Central, which provides immediate open access to research articles of the highest standard, similar to those published by Nature, Science or Cell. Unlike the latter, all research articles published in Journal of Biology will be permanently available free of charge and without restrictions, ensuring the widest possible dissemination of the work.

Journal of Insect Science 
Publishes papers in all aspects of the biology of insects and other arthropods from the molecular to the ecological, and their agricultural and medical impact. An international journal published by the University of Arizona Library. Freely available to individuals and institutions via the Web. No cost inclusion of colour figures, videos, sound and large data sets.

PubMed Central
PubMed Central is an open access web-based archive of journal literature for all of the life sciences. It is being developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

CHEMISTRY

Analytical Chemistry Web Resources 
A compilation of resources (by Ghirma Moges) useful to support teaching and research in the field of analytical chemistry, including technical and specialised databases, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, journals, university departments, organisations, societies, chemical companies and manufacturers, news sources, and much more. There is also a special section devoted to 'Chemistry in Africa' with links to educational and research materials, online textbooks, and other tools and resources for students.
 
Chemistry Preprint Server 
ChemWeb's chemistry preprint server is a freely available and permanent Web archive and distribution medium for scientific research articles in the field of chemistry. It allows users to submit their articles to the server where they become accessible to all the members of ChemWeb.com. Membership is free.

Crystallography Online  
The datasets associated with journals published by the Union of Crystallography (IUCr) can be accessed free of charge from its website. Through Crystallography Online IUCr aims to provide extensive coverage of current and internet-based information concerning crystallography and of interest to crystallographers. This includes access to over 50 wide ranging specialist subject databases.

International Journal of Molecular Sciences 
Provides an advanced forum for chemistry, molecular physics (chemical physics and physical chemistry) and molecular biology. Publishes reviews, regular research papers and short notes. Encourages scientists to publish their theoretical and experimental details in as much detail as possible - there is no restriction on the length of the papers. Free to access to all users in its electronic format.
 
Molecules 
An internet journal of synthetic chemistry and natural product chemistry. Reviews, regular research papers and notes are considered. Our aim is to encourage chemists to publish as much as possible their experimental detail, particularly synthetic procedures and characterisation information. There is no restriction on the length of the experimental section. Free access to all articles to all users, online.

TOXNET 
A cluster of databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, and related areas with free to access abstracts plus links to a range of related NLM sites.

ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

CoRR 
The Online Computing Research Repository (CoRR) serves as a single repository to which researchers from the whole field of computing can submit papers and reports to increase visibility and access. Available to all members of the community at no charge.

EEVL: The Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics and Computing 
This portal provides quick access to the best engineering, mathematics, and computing information sources available on the Internet. Resources were selected, catalogued, classified and subject-indexed by a team of experts and information specialists.

National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering (NISEE)  
Based at UC Berkeley, this is an online collection of abstracts, reports, books, slides and images free to access. Large selection of software programmes available for free download.

National Technical Information Service (NTIS)  
The US Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service (NTIS) has begun electronic delivery of all its reports dating to 1997. Reports numbering fewer than 20 pages are free; those over 20 pages are $8.95. The scanned reports appear in Adobe PDF.

ENVIRONMENT

EPA - Environmental Protection Agency 
Access to scientific information that may be useful in understanding and protecting the environment including access to research publications and technical documents, test methods, data, software, models, and other scientific tools plus access to laboratories, research centres, and other EPA scientific organisations.

Namibian Government Department of Environmental Affairs 
Range of publications concerning a range of topics in Namibia including Desertification, Economics, Impact Assessment, Pollution & Waste, Legislation etc.

Water Resources Abstracts
Compiled from several sources for USGS abstracts on the subject of water resources since 1977, plus some earlier abstracts. The method of submitting and collecting abstracts was not foolproof and, therefore, this is not a complete set. The information you find here should be augmented with other methods of search such as Water Research Abstracts (below).

Water Research Abstracts 
Collection of international water research compiled by the Water Resources Scientific Information Center (WRSIC) of the USGS. The research abstracted in this database covers a wide variety of topics; time period from 1967 to October, 1993. This database contains over 265,000 abstracts and citations. Enough information is given in each citation so that the user can locate titles of interest.

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs)

Association for Information Systems  
All university libraries in countries not listed in the World Bank's list of high income economies http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/class. htm#High_income can be granted free subscriptions to the high-quality electronic journals Communications of AIS (http://cais.aisnet.org/) and the Journal of AIS.

Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) 
Provides an international forum for the electronic and paper publication of high-quality scholarly articles in all areas of machine learning. Free access to all articles to all users, online.
 
TerraLib 
TerraLib is a GIS classes and functions library, available from the Internet as open source, allowing a collaborative environment and its use for the development of multiple GIS tools. Its main aim is to enable the development of a new generation of GIS applications, based on the technological advances on spatial databases. TerraLib is free software available to any users wishing to download it.

MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS

Algebraic & Geometric Topology 
AGT is a fully refereed journal covering all of topology, understood broadly. AGT is published in free electronic format by Geometry and Topology Publications, with papers appearing a few days after acceptance. AGT is freely available online to all users.

Documenta Mathematica 
SPARC partner mathematics journal co-hosted between the University of Beielefeld in Germany and The University of Urbana in the US. (for more details about SPARC, please see below). All articles are free to access for all users.

DML: Digital Mathematics Library  
This site, prepared and maintained by Ulf Rehmann, contains links to 1822 digitized maths books (361524 pages) and 126 digitized maths journals (2609672 pages) searchable by author or title..

Geometry and Topology 
Fully refereed international journal dealing with all aspects of geometry and topology and their applications. Geometry and Topology is free to access to all users in its electronic format.

Mathematics Preprint Server 
Permanent web archive and rapid distribution medium for research articles in the field of mathematics. The preprint server is open to all users and will include final-version articles as well as reports on work in progress. Additionally, articles can be ranked and commented on in discussion threads. Authors are free to update or withdraw their preprints from the server, as well as to submit their articles for publication to their preferred journal. Users can freely browse and search the website but will be asked to login upon submitting preprints. Since 24 May 2004 MPS has stopped accepting new submissions but will remain a freely available and permanent web archive for those mathematics research articles already submitted.

Project Euclid 
Joint project between Cornell University and SPARC, Project Euclid's mission is to advance scholarly communication in the field of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics. Project Euclid hopes to address the unique needs of low-cost independent and society journals. Through a collaborative partnership arrangement, these publishers join forces and participate in an online presence with advanced functionality, without sacrificing their intellectual or economic independence or commitment to low subscription prices. Full-text searching, reference linking, interoperability through the Open Archives Initiative, and long-term retention of data are all important components of the project.

World Digital Mathematics Library 
The Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) of the International Mathematical Union has made a commitment to coordinate efforts to achieve a world-wide digital library. The aim of this ongoing project is to digitize the past mathematical literature in order to make it available online whilst at the same time linking it to current literature in suitable ways.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES

American Medical Association (AMA)  
The American Medical Association provides ten scientific journals without charge to developing nations. The titles include The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA); Archives of Dermatology; Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery; Archives of General Psychiatry; Archives of Internal Medicine; Archives of Neurology; Archives of Ophthalmology; Archives of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery; Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and Archives of Surgery.

Bentham Science 
All of Bentham Science's journals published in the year 2000, 2001 and 6 months of 2002 are now available FREE on-line in full text PDF form in collaboration with INGENTA. This unique offer is ONLY available in the year 2004.

BioMed Central
BioMed Central offers online publishing of articles in all areas of original biomedical research with full peer review and open access. Submission is online and authors retain copyright. All original articles are published in one of the BioMed Central journals (over 100 Open Access journals covering all areas of Biology and Medicine), as well as being posted without delay on PubMed Central and indexed in PubMed.

BMJ Journals 
Free access to the electronic version of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group's 25 specialist journals now including Evidence-based journals. These are freely accessible to anybody in the 100 poorest countries in the world. Users should follow the standard subscription procedures as the BMJ subscription system will automatically recognise the origin of access. See also http://www.bmjpg.com/template.cfm?name=specjou& startrow=15

Cancer.gov 
Free to search Abstract database from the US National Cancer Institute.
 
CHID - Combined Health Information Database 
Bibliographic database produced by health-related agencies of the US Government. This database provides titles, abstracts, and availability information for health information and health education resources. Coverage includes AIDS, Cancer and Health Promotion & Education. CHID lists a wealth of health promotion and education materials and program descriptions that are not indexed elsewhere.

ERA - Electronic Research Archive 
An international health and e-print server organised by The Lancet. Through ERA, The Lancet is committed to making educational resources accessible to clinicians in resource-poor countries. This electronic research archive in international health enables authors to self-archive research relevant to medicine in the developing world, with subsequent comments on the research posted alongside.
 
ExtraMed 
Taking its name from the fact that it comprises journals that are 'extra' to MEDLINE, ExtraMED focuses on over 300 journals that are largely excluded from the international indexes. The ExtraMED Consortium of Journals was originally selected through WHO's various Index Medicus projects. It is thus by far the largest source of full text biomedical literature from developing countries. Provides the database to developing country users for free or at very low cost.

ExtraMed through Informania 
Informania Ltd, the world's largest electronic publisher of biomedical journals from the Third World, has announced that it will provide the ExtraMED full-text database to developing country users for free or at very low cost.
CONTACT: Chris Zielinski, Chief Executive, Informania Limited, P.O. Box 40, Petersfield, Hants GU32 2YH, UK Tel: +44-(0)1730-301297 Fax: 0044-1730-265398 Email: informania@supanet.com

FreeBooks4Doctors
The AMEDEO Group are now making many important medical textbooks available online, free and in full-text. 1  Currently 600 titles are included in the service, sorted by speciality and title. FreeBooks4Doctors! also provides a free alert service as new titles are added.

Free Medical Journals
The Free Medical Journals Site is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet. Currently1380 full-text journals sorted by subject, language, and title, as well as highlight free journals with high impact factors. There is also a mailing list to alert you as new free journals are added to their list.

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research 
Collection of open access and free journals in a wide range of medical disciplines.

Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI)
HINARI  provides a vast library of the latest and best information on public health: more than 2,000 scientific publications, one of the world's largest collections of biomedical literature.

HighWire Press: Sources of free On-Line full text articles and journals 
HighWire Press work with scholarly societies and responsible publishers to host their content online. They do not own the material, nor do they set the journals' policies. HighWire contains 742,863 free full-text articles as of July 2004. HighWire Press at Stanford University develops and maintains the Web versions of important journals in biomedicine and other disciplines. A list of journals with free full-text articles online is available. See also http://www.highwire.org/lists/devecon.dtl lists the journals published online with the assistance of HighWire Press which offer free online access to current content (not just back