We’ve all been there countless times. You finally find the paper you’ve been looking for and it sits behind a paywall. Either you can’t remember which of the countless login details you need, or you simply don’t have access. It makes sense then, that access is one of the key barriers to knowledge translation identified by the Medical Library Association.¹
The good news, there is a revolution taking place in scientific publishing, in the form of the international open-access movement. With the ultimate goal of making all literature free to access.² It’s making significant progress. As of 2017, over 50% of literature has been published as open access. With biology leading the way.³
However, this doesn’t mean the papers are always easy to find. There are various different platforms out there that collate open-access libraries. Like un-paywall and the Directory of Open Access Journals. They are helping, but it still requires you to visit various websites and know what you are looking for.
Read by QxMD can do all the work for you. Through partnerships with entities like un-paywall and unique search algorithms. We are able to locate and provide open access texts directly through the app. All easily searchable and shareable with colleagues.
Of course, there are still close to 50% of papers behind pay-walls³. We will look at this and how we can help in our next article. Don’t worry, it will be free!
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