I wrote a firefox plugin to help solve this problem. See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45524/.
So far it only replaces the link on portal.acm.org with a google scholar search. Contributions beyond this are welcome.
Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#12Usually universities have electronic subscriptions for most journals based on the IP range of the university network.
I ssh one of the computers on campus. cd to my public_html directory and use elinks to download the pdf.
I think many people do this trick because I keep finding good papers in various ~username/ folders indexed by google.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#13A few different places, depending on the situation:
1. Google scholar
2. Authors' personal websites
3. EBSCO Academic Alumni Edition via my alma matter's alumni association
4. Email requests to friends who are currently enrolled at major universities
5. Visits to the local university (Minnesota) library, which offers terminals for free public access to journals
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#14Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#15mendeley.com
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#16Many universities have alumni "library" programs, where you pay a certain fee to gain access to the university's library. As a student, I've never had to use it though and simply showing up to a site with my university's domain name (VPN) pretty much lets me in anywhere.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#17I've managed to keep my university affiliations since graduating so I still have access to most archives for free via my university library.
Once that stops working I guess my next approach would be to mail a friendly request to one of my friends still in the academic world and have them download the pdf for me.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#18Google Scholar.
In California at least, you can also get pdfs of papers at most UC and CSU libraries without being a student. Stanford too, last time I tried. Of course this means you do actually have to physically go to the library in most cases.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#19filetype:pdf title
I use this, mixed with Google Scholar, even though I have access to Web of Science through my university. Google's doing a good job.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you get your scientific papers from?
#20filetype:pdf title
Sometimes you can get books this way too but a lot of the time it is just a preview of a first chapter. Another way is to search for a non-prominent quotation from the book with filetype:pdf.