How do independent scholars get access to databases?

[Charlotte]

The community college where I work does not have many resources for research. Their library database access is very small and I'm struggling to get access to journals. I am mourning the loss of my access to the university where I got my PhD and missing their amazing collection! How do people with little support for research get access to journal articles? The ones I'm seeing are very expensive and while I may be able to talk my library into getting access to one or two I doubt they will be able to do much since the community college isn't interested in supporting researching faculty.

Any ideas? How do independent scholars handle this situation?

[Ruralguy]

Some public libraries would have access to these materials. You could try that.

Also, some independent scholars are granted visiting status at a nearby college library, or that of one of the schools that granted them a degree.

Still other people, if its not a bother, ask colleagues to send them things.

Another thing is that professional societies offer deep discounts on journals related to their profession.
You can get complete online access for something like 50 bucks. But its not every journal.

[Parasaurolophus]

• Your various almas mater may have (limited) library access for graduates.
• University libraries often allow free in-person access to materials, even if you can't check books out.
• Your professional association, if it has a journal, will typically make that journal available to its members as a perk of membership.
• Google article titles and 'pdf'
• Look on author websites and academia.edu for preprint copies.
• Use libgen and scihub and researchgate and the others.

[polly_mer]

Because we're having a related discussion on another thread, but buried pages deep (http://thefora.org/index.php?topic=2221.msg67254#msg67254), I will get on the soapbox here for the readers at home.

One big reason that people who want to do research should not take jobs at places where teaching and service are the faculty jobs is the lack of resources for research.

It's a lovely idea that one can keep researching at a slower pace with workarounds for access to libraries, archives, and labs, but few people manage.  For one thing, the job tends to require so much time and energy that little remains for research, especially with a rich personal life.

The independent scholar models that work tend to involve carefully selected day jobs that leave room for research.  The harsh reality is a non-academic job that pays well enough that one can buy access to resources (even if "buying" means weekend trips to the nearest public research university to be a walk-in user) and has enough free time to do research is often more research productive than being a full-time academic with a heavy teaching load.

Yes, being faculty at a CC is being a professor, but the activities are very different than most people experienced and observed in grad school. Embracing the CC job as its own wonderful experience instead of trying to make it be a SLAC or regional comprehensive experience with a lot of teaching, a lot of service, and some research tends to be a path to success.

[downer]

OP how good is the Interlibrary Loan system at your school?

Working at my CC gives me at least some access to the whole state university library system.

There is also a Facebook group in my field where people ask others to provide them with articles, and it works well.

[mamselle]

Independent scholars in larger towns have more options because both the main town's public library system may have access at all the branches (or not) and/or the university libraries that are generous with allowing visitors to just go in and use the books and other amenities on-site (there are three of these where I am) and/or allow people they know (I'm friends with the librarians of a couple of decently-placed topical libraries within a larger university system) to come in and use the facilities (one even has very kindly called in books for me from other libraries in their own system and let me hold them to work from) makes the research you're asking about possible.

As someone else mentioned on yet another thread, I believe JSTOR was offering 100 free downloads as of last year; I got started using them but had enough to work with after about a month or so, so haven't revisited that option, don't know if it's still running or not.

ILL is yet another option; unless it's a whole book you need, many places will scan the pages you specify (which you can get from the bibliography/notes of the sources you find them in; just buffer your request with a page or two on either side to be sure you pick up the lead-in info).

Then they'll just release them to you (if they're sent as a .pdf, you'd just save a copy of the .pdf to your own XHDD or bib files, so they're not going to re-capture it as they would a physical book, anyway).

And it is hard to carve out research time, no matter what the situation. What I find harder is the lack of the larger carrots, (or the occasional stick), that being in an "up-for-tenure" situation offers. One has to be devoutly self-motivated to the vocation of research to be able to do that work without the inbuilt structures and expectations that encourage (and 'excuse') it among ones family, friends, demanding colleagues, etc.

As independent scholars, no-one 'cares' in the same way if we are 'productive' or 'meeting out tenure goals' so we don't have that structure within which to frame our work...it's really a calling.

If you can't ignore it, try as you might, it's your calling. It's one of those more mysterious things about life. There are some things you just have to do.

And if the call calls, and you answer it, that's your vocation. It's not always pragmatic, it's not (definitely not) 'just a hobby,' it's what you trained for, it's your work and you do it.

As I've said in other ways, the work doesn't care about the circumstances in which you do it. The work just wants to be done, and if it wants you to do it, it's your work and you do it.

Kind of like raising a child. It has a claim on your life that perdures.

M.

[polly_mer]

Kind of like raising a child. It has a claim on your life that perdures.

People neglect and abandon children at non-zero rates everywhere.

People who have the resources and support for child rearing tend to do better than those who lack resources for even the normal hard activities of life, let alone the difficult parts of raising a child that are just intrinsically hard.

I read an article this morning about prioritization.  Everything was true, but that particular activity for me is far enough down the priority list that something else will either have to get suddenly and unexpectedly easier or one of the time-limited activities will have to cease to free up time and energy.

Getting space for research meant getting a different job because full-time teaching with a satisfying family life didn't have room.

[ab_grp]

Thanks for starting this thread! I would pay to be able to have access to the local university library resources or any university library resources, for that matter, but that does not appear to be an option.  I had tried my PhD institution, but they do not provide alumni access.  However, the posts here reminded me that I should try the other university where I obtained a grad degree, and they do appear to offer this as an alumni benefit.   Parasaurolophus's post , in particular, lists a lot of the resources I have used since becoming an independent scholar, but I had never thought of that one.   There are a surprising number of full-text articles available on sites such as researchgate, and I have had luck receiving copies that weren't posted by messaging authors (and have done the same for others).   Again, I really appreciate this thread and the helpful posts.

[Parasaurolophus]

Yeah, I get a few requests for my articles every year, and I'm always happy to provide them.

I also forgot that, as downer said, my field also has a FB group dedicated to article-sharing requests. I've used that a bunch, even when I had a good research library at my disposal, because there's a particular database that almost no libraries seem to have access to.

[Hegemony]

If your stuff is on JSTOR, it has made things free for the pandemic. I know that's not a long-term solution, but it's nice for now. Similarly, many people post their articles for download on Academia.edu or Researchgate.

You could also look into getting access from your grad school or alma mater. My undergraduate college offers database and JSTOR access to all graduates, though you have to sign up specifically to get it.

Your state universities likely allow access to those things if you are physically in their library. Not so simple during a pandemic, but for regular times.

[darkstarrynight]

Like others said, my undergraduate alma mater offers limited library access to alumni. I also would use google scholar and add your local library to library settings. I live for interlibrary loan and think that is a great suggestion. Also check ResearchGate for full-text, where you can also request from authors directly. Many institutions' libraries have repositories that keep pre-print versions of manuscripts. My current institution does and I put all of my publications there, and my doctoral institution has my dissertation available for public access there too.

[jerseyjay]

I am not an independent scholar, but my open admissions public college has little resources. I am also a historian, which affects what sources I am looking for. So I rarely look for databases per se, but instead try to find individual papers. (I also use newspaper databases, but my local library has great access to these as well. I subscribe to the NYT which gives me access to their archives.)

Here are some ways I've got access to articles:
Google it. Seriously. Often it has been posted for some course, on Academia, or ResearchGate, or somewhere else.

Use ILL. (When I was an adjunct, ILL was one of the few perks that I had.)

The local public library (which is huge) has access to many sources, and also has a decent ILL.

Ask friends who work at larger schools.  They don't have to be academics; most people who work for a university can check out books or download articles from jstor.

When I go to the archives at a nearby university, I often will take a bit of time and use one of the computers to download articles.

Write the author and ask for a copy. (I will always send copies people from other countries or who otherwise have trouble accessing my research. It is somewhat annoying when somebody from an R1 writes me, although I will also send it, if only to maintain connections.)

I have registered for a free account on jstor.

I happen to live in a large metropolitan area with several large research universities no more than an  hour or two away, not to mention a public library system that is itself a research library. There are still some articles that I cannot get, but they are fewer than you might at first think.

[downer]

I think maybe on the old fora there was once a thread where some forumites offered to get articles for those who needed them. It is hazy in my memory, but I vaguely remember someone offering to get me an article.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think maybe on the old fora there was once a thread where some forumites offered to get articles for those who needed them. It is hazy in my memory, but I vaguely remember someone offering to get me an article.

I think it'd be great to have that here. It would work well in the research resources subforum I was proposing.

[polly_mer]

I think maybe on the old fora there was once a thread where some forumites offered to get articles for those who needed them. It is hazy in my memory, but I vaguely remember someone offering to get me an article.

I think it'd be great to have that here. It would work well in the research resources subforum I was proposing.

People who care about rules and maintaining their employment are advised to check the faculty/employee handbook and terms of use for their libraries before participating in such sharing.

The librarians facilitating ILL and similar programs do so under rules and agreements.  Copyright protects authors.