Getting Over That Paywall: Accessing Research When You’re Not An Academic
As animal behavior professionals, we should all be committed to keeping up with the scientific basis for our practices, and we want to know when new discoveries about how animals think, perceive, and learn are made so we can critically appraise them and decide how to weave them into how we work. We also know that even well-meaning popular science sites can often distort the truth in favor of a simpler or more intriguing message. Trying to access the latest research without the backing of an academic institution can be incredibly frustrating. This quick guide will suggest ways to (legally!) get around some of the barriers to knowledge acquisition.
Library services
The best way to access printed or digital material is through your local library. Even if you live in a small town, your library can still help you access books and journals they don’t have in their collections. Librarians have access to databases and programs you might not know about, so if there’s a book you really want to find, have a chat with your local librarian before you resign yourself to buying it.
Interlibrary loans
If your local library doesn’t carry the material you’re looking for, you can request it through a service called an interlibrary loan. This is where one library requests the book on your behalf from another. Although you don’t need to locate the book yourself, if you want to find out whether it’s worth requesting an interlibrary loan (i.e., if the book is available in any library at all), you can look the book up on WorldCat.org, or Copac if you’re in the U.K. or Ireland.
Interlibrary loans are not usually free, they can take a fair amount of time to process, and the lending library may not allow you to take the material out of their building. However, they’re a great way to access textbooks that are obscure or very expensive to buy. Your local librarian can help you request an interlibrary loan.
Universities and college libraries
University libraries generally have more complete collections of textbooks and journals, and many will allow access to non-students under certain conditions. However, you may not be able to use some services like online access to academic publications if you’re not a current student, even if you’re in the library building. Some universities and colleges also provide resources for alumni, like access to JSTOR (Journal Storage); what you’re entitled to depends on the license agreement between the university and the content provider.
Copying
It’s not legal for entire books to be copied for you, but you may be able to request certain parts of a book or a journal issue to be copied and sent to you from a library, by post or secure file transfer online. Fair use copyright regulations determine how much of a publication can be copied and sent to you; these depend on the type of publication it is, your intended use for the content, the country you’re in, and how much by percentage or number of pages you’re asking for. In most cases, this is not a free service, but it does allow you to keep the copied material.
Buying books
If you want on-demand access to a textbook that isn’t available at your local library, you’re probably going to have to buy it. Thankfully there are a lot of second-hand marketplaces out there where you can pick up books for a bargain. Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Textbook Rentals, and eBay are good starting points, but there are also specific sites for students looking to offload their used textbooks like SellStudentStuff, and meta-search sites like UsedBookSearch and BookFinder. If you live in a university or college town, campuses often have used book sales at the start of a new semester, so keep your eyes open when fall comes around.
Accessing research articles in journals
Most people find the cost of getting through the paywall on any of the major journal publishing sites like Elsevier and Springer to be prohibitive, alienating them from learning about developments in animal behavior directly from the source. There are a couple of ways to access content without the cost, however.
One of the best ways to access new research is simply by emailing the corresponding author. If you’re browsing online, you can usually find their email address next to their name on the article. The corresponding author is usually easy to spot:
Then clicking on the envelope gives you:
Authors are generally allowed to send you a PDF of their own work, and the vast majority of them will be happy to do so — they really want people to read and use their work! Whether the author is able to share their article does depend on the copyright transfer agreement that they signed, however; although the majority of agreements allow this, not all of them do. See this article for a good discussion of the technicalities.
Articles in open access journals are free to read; the journal charges a publication fee to the research institution rather than an access fee to the end-user. The Directory of Open Access Journals is a good place to search for free-to-read articles. One way to check the publishing policies of a journal before you email an author to ask for a PDF is the Sherpa/RoMEO database. This allows you to search for a journal and see whether it is open access, and if not, whether authors are free to share their work. Here’s an example search for the journal, Animals.
One thing that’s worth remembering: accessing the research you need is a problem for everyone, including academics. When you search for an article and can’t find it, it’s not as simple as academics in their ivory towers neglecting real people in the world! Many institutions do not offer complete subscriptions to every journal their faculty and students might need, as this article from Science explains. In the last few years there has been a push towards making research free at the point of use. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals, for example, use a model that requires researchers pay to publish their papers so that readers can access them for free. Some platforms, like Elsevier, are offering a “hybrid” model, so some papers in a journal will be open access because their authors have paid a fee, and others will be available to journal subscribers. Open access comes with its own set of challenges, however, especially for scientists in less economically privileged countries, who worry that their work won’t get the attention it deserves if they can’t afford to pay for publication.
Other options
DeepDyve.com offers a subscription service for academic articles; it’s basically Netflix for research. For about $50 a month, or $360 for a year, you can read full texts of articles published in academic journals, with no embargo period. The site also allows you to print a limited number of pages every month. If you sign up for an account (you don’t have to activate the free trial) you can access their preview feature, which allows you to read the full text of any article on the site for free for five minutes, once a day per article. Of course, that’s nowhere near long enough to critically appraise a piece of research, but it can be enough time for you to decide whether you want to commit to finding the full text somewhere else.
JSTOR also allows you to read up to five complete articles free each month, if you sign up for a “MyJSTOR” account. From there, you can also look into their paid plans, which run at about $20 a month or $180 a year for their “JPASS” collection. These plans allow you to read an unlimited number of articles, and also to download a restricted number of PDFs, depending on your subscription type.
Some journals offer free access to parts of their catalogue, including early access to new research, so it’s always worth checking if a link to an article in the news will lead you to a free download. Organizations like nonprofits, breed clubs, or lobby groups may also buy access to particularly relevant articles for their members; asking on social media is a good way to discover if you’re entitled to access a paper for free from a group you’re a member of. The IAABC Member forum or one of the IAABC Division groups on Facebook are great options to connect with people involved in research!
Tiro Miller, PhD SBA is the managing editor of the IAABC Foundation Journal, passionate shelter volunteer, and expert at finding things on the Internet.
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Mike is an emerging animal behaviorist sitting in Minnesota in the US. He carries an MSc in social science research methods (U. of Kentucky) and brings a passion for understanding how the methods we favor shape the knowledge we privilege. Coming from careers in teaching and non-profit program evaluation, he found companion animal behavior by accident helping anxious feline friends in a unique shelter in Ohio. It is a privilege and a joy to combine these and advance the journal in this exciting time of growth.
Alexandra is a certified dog behavior consultant and holds a PhD in neuroscience. She has spent over a decade in academic research and is author of numerous scientific articles on different aspects of brain development, including olfaction, neurogenesis, and memory formation. Her work as a behavior consultant focuses on creating trusting relationships between humans and their dogs through communication, respect, and science-based knowledge. Alexandra is very dedicated to promoting more science within the dog training world. She supports dog guardians and professionals to build a solid understanding of scientific principles and provides guidance on how to apply these to life with dogs. She runs Canine Mindscape in Alicante, Spain.
I’m an Argentinean-Italian dog trainer and CSAT who spent eight amazing years in Brazil learning and working with dogs. Now based in Europe, I volunteer with the IAABC as a translator and, in my free time, help rehomed dogs settle into their new families. I love bridging languages—and hearts—between people and their dogs.
I’m a translator, editor and journalist, as well as canine educator for children and families, specialized in canine body language. I am part of the IAABC Family since 2019, as Language Director at the IAABC and Translators Team Lead at the IAABC Foundation, at the moment. I volunteer at local shelters and promote bite prevention and animal welfare at schools and events all over my country, Uruguay.
I’m a Chilean veterinarian and certified dog trainer, based in Madrid and working at a veterinary clinic. I’ve been volunteering with the IAABC and the IAABC Foundation for over seven years. In my free time, I help dogs and their guardians strengthen their bond, and I love spending quality time with my own dogs.
Master’s Degree in Natural Sciences, with a strong interest in environmental sustainability and the protection of natural ecosystems. Passionate about writing and science communication, she collaborates with multidisciplinary teams on research projects, such as Equine International, and with non-profit initiatives in the environmental and cultural fields. She is writing for different magazines, including IAABC Foundation. Her major goal is to improve horse’s welfare through behaviour research and empirical practice.
Adrienne Hovey is the copy editor for the IAABC Foundation journal and the owner of 
I believe that knowledge from a wide range of disciplines fosters a more empathetic, curious, and engaging world. I am passionate about social, environmental, and minority rights issues (both human and non-human), and this has invariably led me down the road of multi-species anthropology. Perpetually curious about the world we live in, I hope to contribute towards making the world a kinder place for all of us earthlings to live on!
Beckie Wheldon is based in England, UK, and has been supporting the IAABC Foundation Journal team as a volunteer journal content editor since early 2025. She has a BSc (Hons) Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and has recently completed a MSc Clinical Animal Behaviour. With a passion for both practical and theory, Beckie is proud to be a part of the journal submission journey and support the process of applied animal behaviour information and research getting from our writers to the readers. As her full-time career, Beckie is currently part of the UK veterinary charity, PDSA, as a Learning and Development Business Partner for Veterinary, where she supports the professional development of people in their Veterinary Hospitals. Her last position was with the rescue charity, Dogs Trust, as a Canine Behavioural Welfare Manager, where she worked on embedding evidence-based behavioural welfare best practices throughout policy and practices, with both internal and external professional stakeholders, such as the police and military. With a varied background in kennels, caregiver education, and charity dog training classes, Beckie is also an accredited Animal Training Instructor (APDT UK) and an Associate Clinical Animal Behaviourist (APBC).
Erin Jones, PhD, IAABC-ADT, CDBC, CPDT-KA, CANZ-ATI, CANZ-ABC, is the Journal Director of the IAABC Foundation Journal. She holds a PhD in Human–Animal Studies, an MSc in Anthrozoology, a PG Dip in Animal Welfare, and a BSc (Hons) in Anthropology and Psychology. An international presenter, editor, writer and mentor, Erin’s writing bridges research and practice with a focus on the intersection of philosophy, ethics and dog-centered behaviour practice. She is the author of Constructing Canine Consent and co-editor of Topics in Non/Human Coexistence and numerous academic and trade journal publications.