Obtaining Full-text Articles

Once you have a final set of publications to review, you will need to get hold of the full-text. If you are having difficultly finding the full-text, the following suggestions may help.

Finding articles

There are several ways University of Leicester staff and students can check for access to full-text journal articles.

Library Search

Copy and paste the title of the article into Library Search on the library homepage. If we have access to the article, it should be one of the first results and will give you either direct PDF download or online access options.

Google Scholar

Copy and paste the title of the article into Google Scholar to check for open access versions. You can also set Google Scholar to identify publications we subscribe to via the Library. Go to Menu > Settings > Library Links. Search for 'Leicester' and tick all appropriate options. E.g. 'University of Leicester Library'.

Open Access tools

There are several browser extensions designed to find open access versions of articles. These include: 

• LibKey Nomad: this identifies open access content for you, as well as articles and books we subscribe to via the Library.

Go to the homepage, (via the ThirdIron website). Then click the orange button that says 'Get LibKey Nomad Now'. Now select your browser. You don’t need to create an account, just select our library from the list.

• Unpaywall – a well known open access browser extension. 

Search large, legal OA aggregators

Some suggestions for you:

• CORE
• BASE
• Dimensions.

Journals A-Z (via Browzine)

The Journals A-Z allows you to search for a journal title (not an article title) to check whether the library has access. If we have access, you can then navigate to the issue of the journal you are interested in.

Document Supply

If you cannot access the full-text of an article using the methods above, then you can request a copy via Document Supply (inter-library loan). Please see our instructions for document supply requests. Please note that there are budgetary constraints on the number of requests the library can supply.

If you request an article that was originally published in another language, then it will be supplied in its original language. The library cannot source translated versions for you.

For recent articles, you could also consider contacting the authors directly to request a copy. Also, check if you have access via another library (e.g. NHS) or through personal memberships of organisations/societies.

Conference Papers, Proceedings and Abstracts

Your literature searches may have retrieved conference papers or conference abstracts. Depending on your inclusion/exclusion criteria you may wish to obtain the full-text or exclude them. There is no standard way of publishing conference papers, so you may need to search in different ways.

Conference Proceedings published as books or book series

You can search for the title of the paper, or for the title of the conference, via Library Search or via Google Scholar.

Conference proceedings published as journal issues or papers published as journal articles

These should be found using the methods above for articles.

Conference Abstracts published in journals

It is common for conferences to only publish abstracts, and for there to be no full text paper available. These are often found as special issues or supplementary issues of a journal. A clue to this is if a reference includes:

• suppl # as issue and only has a single page number, 
• it is 1-2 pages and the page numbers begin with A# or S# or i#. 

The Journals A-Z allows you to search for a journal title (not an article title) to check whether the library has access. If we have access then you can navigate to the issue of the journal you are interested in to check if it an abstract only.

If the library does not have full-text access, then go directly to the journal homepage. Then navigate to the issue of the journal you are interested in to check if it is an issue publishing conference abstracts only.