Hey, A problem that I keep bumping in to recently is that there are lots of scientific journals to which I'd really like access but to which I do not have access now that I'm outside of the academic environment. Specifically right now I'm pretty fascinated with swarm and emergent behavior. I'd like to poke around in some random journal articles to orient myself in the field. I'm looking both from the biological side (Journal of Insect Behavior, Journal of Insect Science) as well as from the computational side (not sure what journals yet). Whats a good way for someone who has no access to a university library to track this stuff down for casual browsing? Can my public library get me this stuff? Should I just sneak in to the local university library? I've poked around online and I can browse article abstracts pretty easily but haven't found any affordable way to gain access to the articles themselves (journal subscriptions seem to run in the $800 US range). Everything seems to be set up from the university librarian side of things rather than the non-academically connected user side (makes sense but is frustrating). Thanks -me

You can join ACM. A professional membership with access to the library is something like $200/yr, but you get a lot of good benefits.

EDIT: Oh, I should mention that ACM won't help you with the insects. [grin]

I assume that you've tried searching Citeseer and the likes of arXiv.org? If not, my main town library has access to many academic journals (but I'm in the UK).

Quote: Original post by MDI
I assume that you've tried searching Citeseer and the likes of arXiv.org? If not, my main town library has access to many academic journals (but I'm in the UK).

Nope. hadn't heard of those sites. They look pretty good for the CS journals. I'll take a trek by my library over the weekend and see how that front looks.

Damn you ivory tower!! =)

-me

Google Scholar is great. It has a knack for finding papers, particularly CS papers, on researchers' personal websites as opposed to subscription-only services.

Oh, also, you're in LA? Just head over to the library at USC or UCLA. Each offers a gigantic trove of online and offline resources, and each is open to the public.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Oh, also, you're in LA? Just head over to the library at USC or UCLA. Each offers a gigantic trove of online and offline resources, and each is open to the public.

Oh, awesome. I didn't realize they were open to the public. That rocks.

thanks!

-me

Access to college libraries depends on the institute. Some still permit public access to their facilities... some even permit public borrowing. If you're a graduate of a college, most provide borrowing and access rights for alumni, so consider joining the alumni association for your college.

Also, state libraries typically have access to many scientific journals.

Otherwise, do as the others have suggested and utilise online resources... there are plenty of them available and many of the major online databases provide free access to old articles (typically published several years or more ago). You might consider paying for a subscription to something like ScienceDirect, or Ingenta, if you want to stay current with a bunch of journals.


Cheers,

Timkin

Quote: Original post by Timkin
You might consider paying for a subscription to something like ScienceDirect, or Ingenta, if you want to stay current with a bunch of journals.

I only spent 2 minutes on each site, but both seem to expect you to register as an academic organisation, not as an individual user.