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After Graduation: Open IS Resources Online

This guide outlines key open Information Sciences research resources online for use by graduates of the University who no longer have access to licensed materials, or by other members of the public.

General Access Policies

  • Alumni can access the UI Library’s licensed full-text databases as long as their NetID remains active. This is controlled by Technology Services, not by the iSchool or the Library.  Per Technology Services, your account on the campus network will expire approximately one year after graduation. Afterwards, licensed databases are only available if you come to campus and use a public terminal.
  • If you live in Champaign-Urbana, you can obtain a community patron card, which will allow you to check out physical materials (excluding loanable technology) with the same privileges as undergraduates.

Open Online IS Information and Research Resources

  • An increasing number of journals in IS and other subjects are published as open-access web journals, and the full text is universally available. The best listing for these journals is the Directory of Open Access Journals, which can be searched or browsed. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field, you may want to look at not only the LIS Journal listings, but Computer Science, Education, or others.
  • You can search the free version of the LIS database Library, Information, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) from EBSCO. It does not have full text, but you can find materials to track down other ways. This might include Interlibrary Loan at your local public library. However, also keep in mind digital repositories (see next item).
  • Digital repositories are your entry points to research that would otherwise be behind a pay-wall—and to grey literature that might otherwise be hard to find. Check out OpenDOAR, the Directory of Open Access Repositories, which will let you search the contents of the institutional repositories of universities and colleges. Or check out IS-specific repositories such as DLIST (US-focused) or e-LIS (European-focused, 2003-2018).
  • For non-article resources, see our guide to web resources and resource by topic, most of which are freely available.

Open Resources Beyond IS

  • The library maintains a guide to publicly available research resources related to a whole range of research interests.
  • The library also keeps a general guide to library services for alumni, including information on taking your university data with you and other resources.
  • The search engine Google Scholar (interdisciplinary) identifies articles, preprints, conference papers, and more, and frequently link to open access content.
  • Produced by librarians, Current Cites annotates articles about information technologies.  You can subscribe to monthly alerts, each covering up to a dozen selected articles.