Under the recently launched ‘Access to Research‘ initiative, public libraries are now able to provide walk-in readers with access to a wide range of academic articles and research.

Following the recommendation of the Finch report that the major publishers should grant public libraries a licence to provide free access to their academic articles, the two year Access to Research scheme will enable a new audience of the general public, small businesses and independent researchers to access scholarly research.

Seventeen leading UK publishers are already participating in the scheme, including Elsevier, Emerald, Nature Publishing Group, SAGE, Springer, Wiley and others.  Between them they are already supplying over 1.5 million articles, with more publishers and publications on the way.

Check this list to find out whether your local public library has signed up for the scheme.