OA Journals
Open access journals are not by definition lower quality than subscription-based journals. Peter Suber says it best:
"OA journals can use the same peer review procedures, the same standards, and even the same people as toll access (TA) journals. This isn't hypothetical, and actually happens whenever established TA journals convert to OA. The key variables in journal quality are the quality of authors, the quality of editors, and the quality of referees, all of which are independent of the journal's price or medium."
If you're looking for an open access journal to publish in, use the Directory of Open Access Journals or see our guide to finding a publication venue.
If you are publishing with established subscription-based scholarly societies and publishers, learn how to make your work open, and which publishers offer discounts on author processing charges for Northeastern researchers, on our Open Access Publishing page.
Search for Open Access Articles
Scholar OneSearch, Northeastern's library catalog and discovery system, contains journal articles from many open access sources, such as the Public Library of Science and BioMed Central.
Example: Use the "open access" filter on the search results screen to find open access materials.
Open Access Books
Books can be shared online as well as journal articles! Some are in the public domain, meaning they are not protected by copyright law, while others are specifically licensed for open access use.
- HathiTrustThis partnership of research institutions and libraries has digitized over 13 million titles, of which over 5 million are in the public domain. Northeastern University's membership permits access to the largest number of volumes available to logged-in users.
- The Internet ArchiveContains more than 8 million freely accessible books. Northeastern University has contributed to this resource through digitization of its out of copyright books.
- Knowledge UnlatchedNortheastern was a charter member of this project, where libraries contribute towards payments to publishers in order to make certain books openly available. Several dozen new academic titles were identified for inclusion in the pilot phase of the project.
- Open LibraryIncludes over 1 million freely available books as well as a lending library of over 250,000 contemporary, in-copyright titles. Many are available in the DAISY format for visually impaired readers.
- Project GutenbergContains over 45,000 freely available books, offered for free download in a variety of formats for viewing on computers or e-readers.
Journals Recently Added to DOAJ
The Directory of Open Access Journals contains over 10,000 journals and is growing all the time. Journals in DOAJ must meet standards for inclusion. Here are some titles that were recently added to the directory:
Need help?
If you've gone through this guide and find that you need additional help, please contact us!
The Ask-A-Librarian page provides a variety of ways you can get in touch with us here at the library.