Free access to Sage journals until October 15

September 3, 2010 10:36 AM

Free access to Sage journals until October 15 - registration is required.

I was a bit wary of posting this because of the registration requirements. But I figured that getting behind a massive paywall would be useful for some of you outside the paywall. I registered, it seemed relatively easy.

posted by carter (13 comments total)

Journal paywalls are one of my least favorite things.
I've always had access to them through one university database or another, but they still drive me crazy. Nothing is worse than timing out and having to reconnect because you lingered reading an article. And it'd be really nice to be able to link to thinks...

At the same time, I'm sure their economic model can't handle giving content away for free. Maybe if universities were heavily subsidized, and in turn supported journals... wouldn't that be a dream.
posted by Stagger Lee at 10:42 AM on September 3, 2010

I think (hope) that open access archives and institutional repositories are one way forward. I really think that half the reason paywalled journals still exist is that tenure track have to churn stuff out and journals are currently where this all ends up. It's a bit ironic that the publishing system exists at least as much for people to publish into, rather than for people ro read out of.
posted by carter at 10:48 AM on September 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Having worked as a researcher and editor on an academic journal (that is free, and is published on the web for free), I can kind of understand why some journals have to charge - even if they don't pay authors (which is the case with almost all) they have to cover their overheads some how, especially if they don't have advertising.

However, as more and more people access the internet and search for information for reasons other than official study, I am guessing there may be more agitation for access to these types of journals for those of us who (no longer) have access to a student ID and therefore have a University Library system paying the hefty sums these subscriptions cost (I have also worked as an Executive Research Officer for a university Research School. One of the big bunfights every year was departments fighting over who got what out of the library funding for journal subscriptions. It was never pretty).
posted by Megami at 11:24 AM on September 3, 2010

Thanks so much for posting this -- great stuff, and it's nice to have access to it, albeit temporarily.
posted by Shepherd at 12:14 PM on September 3, 2010

Thanks for posting this. I registered but I can't seem to be able to see any article. I can search for papers and see the abstracts but trying to load a PDF (when it's supposed to be available) results in a blank page in IE8, Firefox and Chrome. Is the SAGE website being hammered by the freeloaders like myself?
posted by elgilito at 2:16 PM on September 3, 2010

This is a bucket of fun! I registered and then subscribed to the RSS feed of every journal I'm even remotely interested in. I've been downloading articles all afternoon. Friday night, here we come!
posted by iamkimiam at 3:32 PM on September 3, 2010

....Is the SAGE website being hammered by the freeloaders like myself?

Exactly the same problem here (Firefox), elgilito.

The article I really, really wanted was from a 1987 Sage publication (not covered by the free trial) - but I thought I'd found a more recent one that had cites to the first - and all I got was a blank page.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 3:53 PM on September 3, 2010

You don't tell us what this is, even the goddamned site doesn't tell us what it is.

Shrug.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:34 PM on September 3, 2010

Apologies, stavros. According to the site,"You’ll have access to more than 320,000 articles from 560+ journals on SAGE Journals Online—one of the largest and most powerful collections of business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technical, and medical content in the world." Normally you have to be registered (student, faculty) at an academic institution to use the site and download articles. However, access is free for the next six weeks.

Folks, if you have been getting a blank page and no article, check your download directory - that's where my pdfs are going, rather than opening in the blank browser window.
posted by carter at 5:04 PM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thanks -- there are a couple Sage journals that I use regularly but that my current school (and my previous one, for that matter) don't have access to. I've made do over the years pulling down entire archives during their occasional free access periods.
posted by aaronetc at 6:20 PM on September 3, 2010

After looking at Carter's comment I've figured out how to download the PDF when facing a blank page.
If the blank page URL is
http://xyz.sagepub.com/content/4/2/319.full.pdf+html
remove the "+html" ending
http://xyz.sagepub.com/content/4/2/319.full.pdf
Then do "Save as..." or equivalent.
posted by elgilito at 6:47 PM on September 3, 2010

thank you!!!
posted by bardophile at 2:18 AM on September 4, 2010

wow thank you this is great, this will be fun
posted by Danila at 5:38 AM on September 4, 2010