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How do I deal with a paywall?

Librarian

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L Skinner

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Ask a Librarian @
Betty Sue Jessup Library

501 College Drive
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.961.5309
reference@pvcc.edu

The problem

You're using the Web to look for articles for a project. You find something you really like, but you realize you can't read the whole article or download it.

What happened?

You hit a paywall.  If you want to continue, you will have to pay a fee. What can you do?

The solution

When you hit a paywall, the solution is to check the library's resources.

Follow these steps:

Copy the source information (author, title, publication date, journal title, page numbers, DOI, etc.). Get as much information as possible.

Go to the library's home page.

Go to the FIND MORE section.  In the search box in that section, type the title of the article you need (in quotation marks) and click Search.

If you find the article, click on the title. This will take you to another page; click "view online."

If you run into any problems at all, fill out the interlibrary loan request form, including all the source information you collected earlier, and the librarians will look for the article for you.

 

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