Open Access Button – mapping paywalls
A new tool has been launched this week to raise awareness of open access and provide evidence for ‘paywalls’. Now if you are asked for payment in exchange for access to a scholarly article you want to read, you can record your frustration, and potentially find a version of the article you were seeking.
The Open Access Button was created by students David Carroll and Joseph McArthur, and is a very simple browser-based tool. It takes seconds to download and install, and is very intuitive to use. In a few easy steps:
- Sign up for the button at https://www.openaccessbutton.org/
- Drag the button into your bookmarks
- When you hit a paywall, click the button
- Details of the article load automatically – just add your location and a note of why you need access
- Use the tools to search Google Scholar or CORE (an aggregation of repositories) for the article
In this example, the search took me straight to the article in Research@StAndrews:FullText
How to use the Open Access Button
Guardian article: Push button for open access
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| Mapping the paywalls: https://www.openaccessbutton.org/ |