Alternative mechanisms of discovering and accessing the economics literature

Abstract

This paper evaluates the bibliographic and full-text coverage of 15 resources that can be used to discover and access the economics literature. It compares the coverage of conventional library databases such as Scopus and EconLit with that of 10 free, alternative discovery/access mechanisms: a scholarly search engine (Google Scholar), two web-based scholarly databases (Dimensions and OpenAlex), five academic social networks (Academia.edu, arXiv, RePEc, ResearchGate, and SSRN) and two pirate sites (Anna’s Archive and Sci-Hub). The analysis, based on known-item searches for 125 works cited in the Journal of Economic Literature, reveals that the most comprehensive alternative discovery/access mechanisms offer more complete bibliographic and full-text coverage than any of the conventional databases. Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and ResearchGate are among the most comprehensive sources of bibliographic records, while Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and the two pirate sites provide free, full-text access to more of the target documents than any other resources. Although several of the alternative discovery/access mechanisms are deficient in terms of their user interfaces, search capabilities, and metadata, they nonetheless provide excellent bibliographic and full-text coverage of the economics literature. In contrast, no conventional single-subject database covers more than 62% of the target documents.