How To Get The PDF : Tools & News

Now available in beta… https://gettheresearch.org

Here is some background, plucked from various sources:

• Created by combining data from Wikipedia, Pubmed, EuropePMC, Crossref, Unpaywall, and Paperbuzz… #opendata for the win!
• Check out the tweets about it #gettheresearch

Get the peer-reviewed research on any topic. Free, complete, powered by #openaccess and AI. From @unpaywall and @ArcadiaFund.

Let’s just outsource every library service we can not hold up ourselves anymore.(cynical)

Here is anotyher services you can buy to “complements your interlibrary loan (ILL) services by providing library patrons with the immediate fulfillment of full-text articles from unsubscribed journals”

It is called Get it now, by a company called Copyright Clearance Center

Based on the number of 3rd party services and start-ups around getting the full-text of publications, you could state that libraries are failing to keep up, and that others see opportunities, even commercial ones.

Here’s just a few remarks.

• the growing trend of outsourcing IT and innovation developments, has diminished the libraries knowledge, capacities and grip on core services. Innovation in libraries lies in the hands of the commercial parties and their services we buy.
• access to subscription-based scientific publications is no longer the exclusive domain of libraries.
• delivering search and find services to open access scientific publications has not been on the agenda of libraries.
• Current linkresolver tools are not keeping up with the pace of changing publishing policies, and start failing more and more on (early) online published publications.
• Discovery tools only partly keep up. Google Scholar and other ways to get to the pdf are gaining.
• “Libary disconnect” is imminent
• So, we can’t offer patrons what we have, and we can’t find them what we don’t have

What to do about it?

Ami from Iris.ai wrote  an update on R4R. Starting today, you are now able to view and explore the list of authors registered for R4R at https://iris.ai/r4r. While they continue development on the R4R browser extension, this list will allow you to contact users manually to request access to a paper that they’ve written

” You don’t have to find the library. The library finds YOU! (in your browser)

The University of Groningen Library and the Central Medical Libary of the UMCG are testing the very promising tool called LEANLIBRARY. It works inside the user’s browser, and can be tweaked for every library to re-direct or assist the user towards the correct library resources and content.
With the knowledge that many users do NOT start their search for literature at the library website or it’s discovery tool/catalogue, a tool that helps you to automatically -where ever you are- login into the library’s off-campus access tool, makes perfectly sense!

But LEANLIBRARY does even more,much more!

Here are a few things it does for Groningen:
WHILE BEING OFF-CAMPUS:

• It “forces” you into the proxy-server, the moment you need it.
  No need to search for the proxy-login, or to start from the library website
• If you would go to http://scopus.com in Google, because you somehow think the library has a licensed access to it, but you don’t know WHERE the access would be on library website…. LEANLIBRARY would automatically RE-DIRECT you to the correct proxied link and get you into Scopus straightaway.
  Like other browser extentions, LEANLIBRARY “reads” your visited web-pages, and is set to act on various websites of resources, databases, publishers. The library is in control of the lists ánd the actions the LEANLIBRARY plugin can take.
• If you would go to pubmed.gov, instead of the special PubMed-link of the CMB (that makes it possible for you to see the Get-It button), LEANLIBRARY ENHANCES the Pubmed url into the right one.
• Your search results in Google Scholar normally do not contain the Library Get-it! links. With LEANLIBRARY installed in your browser these results are ENHANCED with the Library Get-it! links

• Because LEANLIBRARY receives your libraries holdings, it knows exactly when you have access to the full-text. Itwill turn any paywall into access to the pdf automatically, based on this.
• If you run into publications that the library has no subscription for, you will be notified of ANY OPEN ACCESS OR ALTERNATIVE versions that is available. This service is mainly made possible by the Unpaywall-data.
• If you visit Publisher’s submission platforms, you will be NOTIFIED of the existence of OA Deals of Dutch universities with many publishers, which results -in most cases- in NOT having to pay the APC when choosing to publish in open access.
• The library can implement a whole range of  ASSISTIVE actions when a patron visits a certain webpage,
  i.e. on the visit of the elsevier.com site, it could tell the user in the POP-UP that the library does have licences to a range of services from Elsevier, with links to them!

This licenced tool makes use of your library collections details and holdings

Download the PDF to make use of the LINKS to the tools & sources

Here is the press release of STM about the acquisition of Lean Library.

http://www.stm-publishing.com/sage-publishing-acquires-lean-library-to-bring-library-services-into-the-patrons-workflow/

This brings us to the following overview of one-click-pdf-tools:

• Kopernio (now acquired by Clarivate; free; shows accessible fulltext for your library (if you have a off-campus solution), plus open access and alternative versions.
• Unpaywall (by Impactstory ; free; brings you open access publications “only”
• Anywhereaccess (by Digital science
• LibKey (by Third Iron)
• Lean Library (now part of SAGE not really a one-click-pdf tool, but assisting to get there anyways)

The way Browzine is offering access to the pdf in their tool, is now being integrated into discovery tools like Summon en Primo! here is an excerpt of the press-release:

Coming Next Week to Primo & Summon BrowZine Libraries!

Discovery environments are about to get a whole lot better!  Users love how BrowZine brings them to the PDF with just one click, both in the mobile apps and web service. This technology, called LibKey, will be available via the BrowZine API for Summon and Primo next week with other discovery services to follow soon.  Even better, there is no additional charge for this great new feature!

LibKey is based on the years of experience Third Iron has in managing all of the complexities required to connect users to articles, including journal entitlements, authentication and linking.  The result is an almost magical user experience of clicking on a link and getting immediately to a PDF.  No link resolver, choosing sources, navigating platforms or any other aggravating steps that can derail your researchers.

Aaron Tay very quickly responded via Twitter: “With LibKey, a link directly to the PDF organically appears in your discovery results whenever one is available..an almost magical user experience of clicking on link and getting to a PDF.  No link resolver, choosing sources, navigating platforms or any other aggravating steps”

With +50.000 subscribers to the subreddit SCHOLAR https://www.reddit.com/r/Scholar/  it is for sure a network to be mentioned, when talking about the various existing  ways to get to full-text.

If i am honest, i did not know about it untill recently i read a blog post by Aaron Tay (Reminder: you should ALWAYS read ALL his posts!

Musings about librarianship)

) 

Basically subscribers of this “subreddit” (the amount doubled since Aaron wrote his post btw) request the full-text of an article or book (mind you there is also a specific reddit for “bookexchange”

Thanks to Lotta Haglund for pointing out this ” survival guide” published by the Linköping University Library.

Interesting in this guide is that they clearly also want to show almost every tool their users could use, and also are not afraid to list -what they call- the ” Dark Side- tool” I think it is essential for a library to take a statement too. If you create an overview like this, you SHOULD also mention Sci-Hub and other platforms/channels, and preferably also add your opinion about them. Put in a serious disclaimer and explain why. So hurray for Linköping University Library!

But they forgot to mention (or it is by choice) the most promising tool for libraries with an off-campus access tool, Kopernio
Kopernio offers pro-active, fast access to all the library’s licensed content (in a better way than linkresolvers can) AND delivers the same one-click access to open access articles, as it also uses Unpaywall-data.
Here is the pdf FULLTEXT01

Find, Click, Read. With those three words starts the launch of a new service by Digital Science. Read more about it on their blog here:

Anywhere Access: Find. Click. Read.

or visit one of their webinars : https://www.anywhereaccess.com/webinar/

After the webinar and a seperate demo at the University Medical Center Groningen this week, i will come back with more details & experiences. as it is a licensed service, it’s needs to be set-up for your institution.

Anywhereaccess (AA for short?) seems to be (or become) a combination of Kopernio-like features ánd Leanlibrary. Leanlibrary has not specifically the one-click feature, but allows libraries to communicatie with their users IN their browsers about access and services.

Here is the new library guide from University Library of the Karolinska Insitutet about the alternative ways you can access scientific publications after the nation-wide cancellation of the Elsevier licenses. It is presented in a nice graphic workflow.

1. Being a medical university they decided to list PubMed Central as the number one go-to resource.
2. Second listing are Unpaywall and Open Access Button. Am curious why they are not mentioning Kopernio, which is currently the best for libraries with off-campus access because it uses also the Unpaywall data, 2-in-1 so to say! And their library guide is all ready for use: https://kopernio.com/library-guides/19123/Karolinska-Institute
3. Third option is searching for it in Google, Google Scholar and 1Findr.
   The library catalogue reSEARCH is not mentioned, although they do have a search options in there to find open access publications.
   In my opinion libraries should do TWO things for discovery of open access publications: a) make the available API’s of as many sources as possible connect to their discovery-tools (Unpaywall, 1Findr, Dimensions, CORE, BASE etc). b) advice the use of the browser extentions Kopernio, Google Scholar ánd Unpaywall, as well as the search options of these resources itself.
4. No. 4 is to remind users that although the Elsevier journals are no longer accesible (apart from articles published from January 1995 to June 2018, due to the post-termination clause)
5. Users are encouraged to use their (and others) networks. Social media, the author, but we also know that many researchers use their colleagues (worldwide) to “responsibly” share (their own) scientific publications.
6. Of course you can ALWAYS contact your library to order a copy. While researchers might not take the effort to check every and each browser extention, or the wide range of search databases for open access publications, library staff working with ILL orders SHOULD be trained to effectively use as many as possible, but at least the following: Google scholar, Kopernio, Unpaywall, Open Access Button, 1Findr, Dimensions

I particularly like the firm statement about Sci-Hub to avoid copyright infringement at all times.  More libraries should do the same. When making these lists of alternative routes to access of scientific publications, one should always name this topic of -what we KNOW- is a hugely used source for many of our users.
NOT talking about it, is very  hypocritical, in my opinion. Libraries should make this statement and demotivate the use of Sci-Hub, the same way as we actively MOTIVATE the publication of scientific publications in open access!

At the end of the list is a nice reference thanking the  Linköping University Library for the inspiring “Survival Guide” which I will discuss in the next post!