Is there any way to read articles without subscription? [closed]

This is addressed at both PoorGuy and quanta's questions. Researchers don't generally subscribe to journals on an individual basis; we rely on institutional subscriptions at our universities. Many journals don't even have an option for an individual subscription, they only have prices for institutional use.

If you live near a large university you may be able to go to the university library and read articles there. The print collections of most libraries are open for public browsing, and online access subscriptions usually work from any on-campus computer. Many libraries have a "friend of the library" program that will let anyone get a library card for a nominal annual fee. This may include computer access and the ability to check out books.

If you go to a smaller university, you can often use their document delivery services to get a copy of a paper that you don't have access to. These are sometimes called "interlibrary loan" but for a journal paper they are much more likely to just send a copy of the paper than to ship a printed journal. If you are a library member (even at a public library), you should always look into this option before buying a paper directly from the publisher.

If you are at a university you also are likely to have access to MathSciNet, which is a very helpful resource for finding math papers.


Basically a few possibilities come to mind immediately:

  • Preprint could be found at http://arxiv.org/ (thanks to Hans for reminding me this possibility).

  • The author could have the preprint of the paper on his website. (google for it)

  • Many mathematical journals allow to download for free any paper that is older than some period (usually about 5-10 years).

  • You can also find copies of older papers at specialized sites (try to google for projecteuclid, numdam, "gottingen digital library"; but there is a lot more). Based on my experience so far I'd say that if the journal has a Wikipedia article and some volumes are freely available, you'll find a link in the Wikipedia article. (Examples: Wikipedia article for Mathematische Annalen has a link to GDZ. Wikipedia article for Duke Mathematical Journal has a link to projecteuclid. Wikipedia Article for Acta Arithmetica links to matwbn.)

  • If you have a friend at some university/institution that might have a subscription, try to ask him.