Research Guides: Resources for Teachers: Free Online Academic Sources: Home

Michael Schwartz Library

Welcome!

Who is this guide for?

It's for anyone carrying out research without access to academic research material through an academic library or personal subscription. This includes Cleveland State University alumni, students between courses, and the general public anywhere.

Browse the guide to find out what you can discover!

Google Scholar

Google Scholar can be the best place to start when looking for an article, as it automatically provides links to many Open Access articles, institutional and subject repositories, pre-print servers, and academic social networks.

Google Scholar

Open Access Journals, Articles, Datasets, & Primary Sources

OpenDOAR
A directory of Open Access repositories with Global coverage. You can search the directory by name or browse geographically
Academic Journals
a broad-based publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals in subjects including art and humanities, engineering, medical science, social sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences and agricultural sciences
Digital Commons Network
Free access to full-text articles and other research from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals
Google Public Data Explorer
Public data and forecasts from a range of international organizations and academic institutions
JSTOR / ARTSTOR - Free Content
Journal content in JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere is freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world; this represents 6% of the content on JSTOR

AgEcon
Free-to-user website that contains the full text of working papers, conference papers, and journal articles in applied economics
BioMed Central
Free access to biomedical research
CiteSeerX
Digital library for scientific and academic papers, primarily in the fields of computer and information science
Elsevier Science Open Access Journals
Open access science journals
InTech Journals
Open access science journals
Medknow
Mostly open access journals in the medical field
Public Library of Sciences (PLOS) Collections
Variety of open access science journal articles
PubMed Central
A free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)

African Journal Archive
Make sure the "free content" icon is selected. A Sabinet Gateway project in conjunction with the Carnegie Corporation that is making African research accessible to the whole world
Chronicling America
Searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages
Making of America
The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction
OAIster
A union catalog of millions of archival records
Poetry Foundation
Access to poetry and other resources

Data.gov
Data sets managed and hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies
Gallup
Polls on current topics
THOMASNET.com
Business database; freely searchable database of hundreds of thousands of North American manufacturers, suppliers, and products

New York Public Library Picture Collection
Contains 30,000 high-resolution digital images taken from the New York Public Library's extensive collection

Other Free Material Online

Google Images
Make sure to go to Tools and then Usage Rights to limit to just openly-licensed images.
Openverse
Creative Commons' search tool. Can limit to just images using the drop-down to the right of the search box.
flickr
Search for Creative Commons licenses using the Any License limiter on the upper left.
Pixabay
All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty-free for anything you like, even in commercial applications. Attribution is not required.
Public Domain Archive
A public domain image repository.
Public Domain Pictures
A repository for free public domain images. Download high quality HD photos or upload your own.
Wikimedia Commons
Repository of public domain images and other media content available in a wide variety of languages.

ccMixster
Musicians upload their music to ccMixster. Tracks that must be purchased for commercial licenses will indicate this.
Free Music Archive
Audio tracks on the Free Music Archive are curated by the website, and many of the artists are invited before submitting. Most of the material uses Creative Commons licenses or Public Domain, but as always, check before using.
Internet Archive Netlabels
Much of what is included in this collection is Creative Commons licensed.
MusOpen
MusOpen contains mostly recording of classical works. Most of the recordings are public domain or creative commons. Some are not licensed for commercial use, so check the license!
SoundCloud
Artists can upload their music to SoundCloud. Under "Filter results" click the copyright symbol (©) and choose "to share" or "to use commercially", depending on your need.
Public Domain Review
From the Open Knowledge Foundation, curated collections of music and audio within the public domain.
YouTube Audio Library
Music and audio provided by YouTube, published with non-restrictive licenses (individual tracks may or may not require attribution).
SoundBible
Collection of sound effects for use in video projects. The majority have creative commons license, requiring attribution.

Open Educational Resources Guide
Openly licensed resources for learning and teaching

Michael Schwartz Library

Resources for Teachers: Free Online Academic Sources

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Welcome!

Who is this guide for?

Google Scholar

Open Access Journals, Articles, Datasets, & Primary Sources

Other Free Material Online