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 issues) to all countries that appear in the World Bank's list of "low income economies" (plus Djibouti).

INASP-Health 
INASP-Health is a cooperative network of more than 1000 organisations and individuals worldwide, working together to improve access to relevant, reliable information for health professionals in developing and emerging countries. Participation is free of charge and without obligation. INASP-Health provides the following services for the international health information community:

• Health Information Forum

• INASP-Health Advisory and Liaison Service

• HIF-net at WHO

• INASP-Health Directory

• INASP Health Links

• Capacity-building programme

• Publications

• Health Library Partnerships Database

INASP Health Links 
A Gateway to selected Web sites of special interest to health professionals, medical library communities, publishers, and NGOs in developing and transitional countries. It covers General Resources (search engines, gateways, bibliographic databases, abstracts, clinical trials databases, research networks, dictionaries, glossaries, disease classifications, evidence based medicine, full-text E-books, image collections, journals, newsletters, medical education resources, news, useful email lists, and WHO sites); plus Subject Index (e.g. Anaesthesiology, Basic Sciences, Dermatology, HIV/AIDS etc.); plus Library and Publishing Support and Use of ICTs (Information for Development, Internet Skills, Medical Informatics/E-Health, Publishing Tools).

INDMED 
India's contribution in the areas of biomedical research and health care has been significant and conforming to international standards. However, only a small fraction of it is available for reference through international bibliographic databases. In an effort to redress this imbalance, the National Informatics Centre of India has developed INDMED. Initially this site offers access to the tables of contents and abstracts of 75 leading Indian journals. More journals would be added to the list as their quality improves in coming years. Access to this database is free and open to all users. See also http://medind.nic.in/ for a one point resource of peer reviewed Indian biomedical literature covering full text of IndMED journals.

Journal of Medical Internet Research 
Founded in 1999, is the first international scientific peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of research, information and communication in the healthcare field using Internet and Intranet-related technologies. Free access to all articles to all users, online. Full text content of the journal is also available from Bioline International.

Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 
A multidisciplinary quarterly biomedical journal, is one of the oldest medical journals from India. The journal is official publication of the Staff Society of Seth G. S. Medical College and K. E. M. Hospital, Mumbai, India. The website of the journal provides free access to full text of articles from 1990. Free access to all articles to all users, online.

Landes BioScience
Medical handbooks(55)available in pdf to medical libraries in the developing world at no charge.

MedicalStudent.com 
MedicalStudent.com is described as a digital library of authoritative medical information for all students of medicine. It is meant to serve as a "pico portal" for users interested in quality medical resources on the Internet. Contains over 250 medical textbooks arranged alphabetically in topics from Anatomy to Urology. Each textbook included is free to use, in part or in whole
 
New England Journal of Medicine
The New England Journal of Medicine is available to over 60 countries (listed on their web site) under its "Access for Low-Income Countries" program. Users from these countries will be recognised automatically by their IP addresses and allowed access to full text without charge.

POPLINE Database 
POPLINE, the world's largest bibliographic database on population, family planning, and related issues, is now available free of charge on the Internet. All 280,000 citations, representing published and unpublished literature, can be accessed for no charge.
 
Ptolemy Project 
A research partnership between the Office of International Surgery at the University of Toronto and members of the Association of Surgeons of East Africa (ASEA), combines the provision of access to high quality electronic health information with a process to evaluate its impact for the participants. It aims to answer the question, does access to full-text health information have a positive effect on surgical practice, teaching and research in East Africa.

PubMed 
PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 14 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources
 
PubMedCentral 
The U.S. National Library of Medicine's digital archive of life sciences journal literature claims to offer open access to over 80,000 articles from over 100 journals. Access to much of the full text on PMC is free and unrestricted. A journal may make its content available in PMC as soon as it is published, or it may delay its release in PMC for a specified period after initial publication. Current PMC journals have delays ranging up to two years, with most releasing their material six months or less after publication.

Washington DC Principles  
Forty-eight non-profit publishers of 380 journals each year, representing more than 600,000 members of medical and scientific societies, and posting 800,000 articles on line each year, of which more than 440,000 are free, have signed the "Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science," whose gist is:

• Selected important articles of interest are free online from the time of publication; 

• The full text of our journals is freely available to everyone worldwide either immediately or within months of publication, depending on each publisher's business and publishing requirements;  

• The content of our journals is available free to scientists working in many low-income nations;

A list of the journals can be found at http://www.dcprinciples.org/signatories.htm

Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK)  
The Royal College of Psychiatrists allows free access to the online full-text version of its three journals ('British Journal of Psychiatry', 'Psychiatric Bulletin' and 'Advances in Psychiatric Treatment') to 75 different developing countries.

SciELO Public Health 
Public Health is an electronic library online covering health science articles published by scientific journals. Its primary goal is to provide universal and integrated access to scientific journals in the health science area within Ibero-American countries.

WHO Reproductive Health Library
Now in its seventh edition, this electronic review journal focuses on evidence-based solutions to reproductive health problems. RHL includes the full text of systematic reviews produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, with commentaries on implications for practice, as well as the Lancet epidemiology series on randomised controlled trials, videos on implementation, and other resources to help improve reproductive health. A subscription to the WHO Reproductive Health Library is free to individuals in developing countries by sending the request to the e-mail address: rhl@who.int

PHYSICS

ArXiv 
Ground-breaking pre-print server in selected physics, computer science, maths and neuroscience disciplines. Contains 100,000's articles submitted by members of the user community. Free access to all papers to all users.

CERN 
Over 650,000 bibliographic records, including 320,000 fulltext documents, of interest to people working in particle physics and related areas. Covers preprints, articles, books, journals, photographs, and much more.

Living Reviews in Relativity
A refereed solely electronic journal offering reviews in all areas of relativity, including an extensive reference database. Published by the Albert Einstein Institute Max-Planck-Institute for gravitational physics in Germany. Free access to all articles to all users, online.
 
NASA Astrophysics Data System
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a NASA-funded project that provides free access to over 300,000 free full-text articles in astronomy and astrophysics. Most of the major astronomical journals are included. In many cases articles published in the current year are not available through ADS. Articles are available in PDF, GIF, or other electronic formats.

New Journal of Physics 
New Journal of Physics is co-owned by the Institute of Physics and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, and is supported by a growing number of physical societies around the world. NJP is available without charge to readers and is funded by article charges from authors of published papers.

SCIENCE GENERAL

Best of Science
The Best of Science is a free-access scientific publication of preprints and peer-reviewed articles. It is publishing in five major fields split in thousands of special areas: Exact Sciences, Technologies, Biological Sciences, Medical Sciences and Human Sciences. Best of Science authors pay for the publishing process of papers and preprints. Fees are low and especially adapted to respond to the geographical origins of the authors. Papers can be published 1 week after reception. Access to the journal is wholly free.

BIOME 
Consortium-based hub providing access to quality resources on the Internet in the fields of agriculture, food, forestry, pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, nursing, dentistry, biological research, veterinary sciences, the natural world, botany, zoology, and more. It consists of five subject gateways, which are cross-searchable and cross-browsable. The service is coordinated by the University of Nottingham, who are joined by a formidable range of high profile partners and content providers from the UK health and life science sectors.

ContentsDirect 
A free e-mail service which delivers Elsevier Science book and journal tables of contents directly to your PC, providing you with the very latest information on soon-to-be published research. Imprints covered by this service are Elsevier, Pergamon, North Holland and Excerpta Medica. Registration to ContentsDirect also entitles you to unlimited free access to Sample Copies Online using the same username and password.

eJDS - eJournals Delivery Service
The Abdus Salam ICTP/TWAS Donation Programme, in collaboration with the ICTP Scientific Computer Section and ICTP Library, is developing a prototype information retrieval system called eJDS: eJournals Delivery Service. This is geared to facilitate the access to current scientific literature for scientists in institutions in Third World Countries who have low bandwidth internet facilities. Titles are included from Academic Press, the American Physical Society, Institute of Physics Publishing and World Scientific.

Entropy 
An open access international and interdisciplinary journal of entropy and information sciences, publishes peer-refereed reviews, regular research papers and short notes. Entropy's aim is to encourage scientists to publish as much as possible their theoretical and experimental details. Entropy follows the guidelines of the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Google Directory
Comprehensive trawl of web sites offering free science publications

Indian Academy of Sciences 
The prestigious peer-reviewed journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences are available online free to all users. The first issue of the Academy Proceedings appeared in July 1934. Publications cover the physical sciences, life sciences, physics, mathematics, chemistry, earth and planetary sciences, plant sciences, animal sciences, and modern biology, materials science, astrophysics and astronomy, genetics plus the journal Resonance, aimed at improving the quality of science education and teaching. Access to all of these journals is free and open to all users.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
A non-governmental research organisation conducting inter-disciplinary scientific studies on environmental, economic, technological and social issues in the context of human dimensions of global change, IIASA's charter stipulates that all its research findings should be freely disseminated worldwide. The full-text of the institute's publications can be downloaded from its website at: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/docs/IIASA_Publications.html  at no charge. The contents of this catalogue can be browsed by author, date, project, subject or type, or the required publication can be located using a simple keyword search. A free quarterly newsletter, Options, is also available from: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Options/  IIASA is a member of ICSU.

Journal of the Indian Institute of Science 
The Journal of the Indian Institute of Science was started in 1914 with the objective of publishing quality research papers in science and engineering. Research papers and review articles are selected through a stringent peer review process overseen by the editorial board. The Journal is a multi-faceted publication with content likely to be of interest to research students as well as academic and R & D professionals. Free and open access to all articles for all users.
 
National Academy Press
Over 2,800 reports, e-newsletters and journals from US National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

Public Library of Science (PLOS)  
A non-profit organisation of scientists committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource. PLoS currently plans to begin publishing two new journals - working titles PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine - publishing the best peer-reviewed original research articles, timely reviews and commentary. PLoS Biology launched its first issue on October 13, 2003, in print and online. PLoS Medicine will follow in autumn 2004. The PLoS journals will retain all of the important features of scientific journals, including rigorous peer-review and high editorial and production standards, but will use a new publishing model that will allow PLoS to make all published works immediately available online, with no charges for access or restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use.

SciDevNet  
SciDevNet provides a variety of topical news, views and information about science, technology and development, including coverage of developments in Latin America, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, for which it offers a series of regional gateways. There are also book reviews, notices about meetings, grants and jobs, together with links to scientific organisations, news sources, journals, and aid/funding agencies.

SciELO Scientific Electronic Library Online 
The objective of the site is to implement an electronic virtual library, providing full access to a collection of serial titles (from Brazil, Cuba and Chile in a broad range of subjects languages ie Portuguese, Spanish and English), a collection of issues from individual serial titles, as well as to the full text of articles. The access to both serial titles and articles is available via indexes and search forms. No charge is made.

Science and Technology Sources on the Internet. There is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch: Freely Accessible Databases for the Public (by Sandy Lewis)
A good descriptive inventory of databases that produce lists of citations to scientific literature, and which are freely accessible. In addition to the major free databases such as UnCover, Agricola, Medline, etc. it also includes searchable databases from learned societies, government agencies, electronic journal publishers, and various discussion groups-all freely accessible.

SCIRUS 
A specialist search engine for scientific, technical and medial information sources. It offers two types of services: Web sources provide information for which no subscription or online registration is required. Scirus searches the entire Web and excludes sites with no scientific content. Examples of Web sources are university Web sites, learned society pages, scientists home pages, preprint servers, commercial companies, etc. Membership sources are information sources for which either a paid subscription or online registration is required, and often including peer-reviewed scientific information not directly accessible by standard search engines.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Behavioural and Brain Sciences 
Totally open archive journal where users can submit papers, commentaries, responses and search the archive for papers in all fields of the Brain/Behavioural Sciences. Access to all articles is free to all users.

Cogprints 
Leading electronic archive for self-archive papers in any area of psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics, and areas of computer science, philosophy, biology, the physical, social and mathematical sciences that are pertinent to the study of cognition.

Biblioteca Virtual de Ciencias Sociales de América Latina y el Caribe 
An initiative of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, CLACSO) providing free access to 1,800 full-text books, periodical articles, conference proceeding and also to databases with information about publications, research projects and researchers working in its network of 130 social science research institutions in 19 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
 
Development Gateway  
Development Gateway describes itself as "the world's most extensive source of project descriptions, funding, and contact details, with over 300,000 records drawn from multiple databases." Includes details on projects of the World Bank and other multilateral development agencies for businesses interested in offering products and services, together with major development indicators, from literacy rates to telephone connections, organised by country and region, and there are also country gateways providing perspectives within developing countries on economic and social issues.

Electronic Development and Environment Information System (ELDIS) (hosted with Devline) 
The British Library of Development Studies's electronic information service for development professionals, including resources directory, Email discussions, links to databases, library catalogues, bibliographies, etc

ELSSS - the Electronic Society for Social Scientists 
A not-for-profit organisation aimed "at solving the ever deepening crisis in scholarly and scientific communication created by the pricing policies of some commercial publishers that have forced libraries in the developed world to cut their journal portfolios and to slash their book collection and that have priced developing and transition economies out of the knowledge loop altogether." The first ELSSS journal - due Spring 2003 - will be available at no cost to all University Libraries and non-profit research centres in developing and transition countries.

Gateway  
A sustainable development primer and resources.

International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Access to the collection of online reports and magazines from the IDRC, Canada.

Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications 
Multilingual Matters is one of the world leaders in research on multilingualism and minority language rights. Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications are offering free electronic access to journals for institutional subscribers in countries of "low human development" as defined by the Human Development Index.

Psycoloquy
A refereed international, interdisciplinary electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) and indexed by APA's PsycINFO and the Institute for Scientific Information. Psycoloquy publishes articles and peer commentary in all areas of psychology as well as cognitive science, neuroscience, behavioural biology, artificial intelligence, robotics/vision, linguistics and philosophy.
 
World Development Sources (World Bank) 
World Development Sources (WDS) is a web based text search and retrieval system which contains a collection of over 14,000 World Bank reports most of which are scanned and are available in imaged format, which you can access via a web browser and search through a multi-field search engine. These include Project appraisal reports, Economic and Sector Works, Evaluation reports, studies and working papers.

Data Services with Unrestricted Access

American Mathematical Society - Repository for both scholarly and professional information of interest to mathematicians, other scientists, and the organizations that support them.
 

The British Library - BL's web server. A guide to the collections and services available from the UK's national library
 

BUBL - the BUBL
Information Service. User-friendly subject-based access to the Internet, an Internet current awareness service, and specialist service to the UK Library and Information Science Community.

CARL - information about databases and library catalogues from the CARL Corporation (some commercial databases require registration).
 

ChemSpy.com - offers access to chemistry and chemical engineering related web databases for professionals, scientists and students. .

The Data Archive - at the University of Essex. Social sciences and humanities data. Includes access to BIRON, the Archive's catalogue .

Devline - Information services and systems for development professionals and others, covering issues of economic, social and sustainable development. A service from the UK's Institute of Development Studies.

ESToC - the Elsevier Science Tables of Contents service. This service is updated weekly and gives the tables of contents of more than 1,000 Elsevier Science primary and review journals.

EUROPA - A WWW server run by the European Union offering information on the EU's goals and policies. Provides access to publications, statistics and the WWW sites of other EU bodies.

HELIX - access to over 50,000 images for educational use by the UK higher education community.

iCDL - International Centre for Distance Learning. A database of information, collected by the Open University, about distance learning, with details of courses, institutions, and literature.

Internet Grateful Med - the US National Library of Medicine's service offering access to a number of databases including MEDLINE, AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, ChemID, HISTLINE, and TOXLINE.

NatureServe - conservation status, taxonomic, and distribution information for over 50,000 plants, animals, and ecological communities in the USA and Canada.
 

On-line Books Page - access to electronic books. An index to hundreds of novels, plays and poetry with links to the texts themselves.

Oxford Text Archive - archive and dissemination facilities for electronic texts.

The Patent Office - the body which grants patents and registers trade marks and designs in the UK.

Project Gutenberg - an ever increasing selection of electronic texts
 

UNESCO - WWW site for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Includes directories and indexes of UNESCO publications

US Patent and Trademark Office - part of the US Government's Department of Commerce.
 

William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. A WWW server with html versions of the texts.

CiteSeer.IST (Free Fulltext)

Scientific Literature Digital Library

ANSInet.Org (Free Fulltext)

The range of ANSInet Publishing products and services covers animal sciences, entomology, plant sciences, environmental sciences, human health, parasitology, mycology, crop protection, biochemistry and molecular sciences.

PJ Online
 

PJ Online is the official website of The Pharmaceutical Journal. The site was launched on September, 1999 at the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Cardiff.

Repository Journals and Peer-Reviewed Series