LibGuides: Science and Technology free sites: Home

Welcome

Alums and members of the community regularly ask if it is possible to arrange for the same kind of off-campus access as is held by those currently affiliated with UT-Austin --- no, it is not.

Nor have we found an organization to join that offers the kind of library access you'd like to have. We offer good access to subscription sources if you can come to campus; however, getting set up for that access is complicated. Some information is here and it is a good idea to talk with staff before you make a special trip.

Otherwise, here are suggestions of freely available options. Some are always a first choice and some are work-arounds. See the Free Resources page of the Access the Library After Graduation Guide for information about other subject areas.

Some Basics

Public Library Holdings

In Texas, public libraries are usually part of the TexShare community, providing access to a set of excellent databases, including full-text for many articles.

Academic Search Complete and
Business Source Complete

are good databases for STEM content.

Always Available

Google Scholar
Library staff prefer "library databases" because of their sophisticated features but Google Scholar can be a helpful index to research papers and it is available.
Google Book Search
Always a great tool for finding books since you can search the text. Sometimes you can get all you need from the preview.

From the Libraries Databases List

The list of library Databases includes many freely available databases. The list may be sorted in various ways. The Open Access "type" may be used alone or with a "subject" to find options.

Of note for STEM research:

arXiv.org
For physics and related fields.
ChemRxiv
Preprints of chemistry research papers.
Explore Census Data
Demographic and related information from the Census office.
NIST Chemistry WebBook
Chemical and physical property data.
OSTI.GOV
Indexing and much full text for research from the Department of Energy.
Texas ScholarWorks
Publications from the UT community.
TRID: The TRIS and ITRD Database
Indexes the research literature of transportation research and transportation engineering. Only some full-text.
WorldCat.org
The freely-available version of WorldCat-OCLC. Verify publications and find which libraries own the title.

There are some databases that the UT-Austin Libraries have in a different form. These should not ask for credentials, though full-text will only be supplied if it is open-access. Here is one example:

IEEE Xplore Digital Library
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the major society for electrical and computer engineering, with interdisciplinary research reaching into many other areas.

Also:

engrxiv
Publishes, "two major types of article: (1) Preprints of articles in parallel to traditional journal submissions. (2) Previously published articles that you wish to make Open Access."