Paleoart - doing your research

[Newt]

Anyone who is interested in making up-to-date, accurate paleoart needs to know how to access the information they need for their projects. Now, some information can be gotten from the popular-interest and semi-technical books available at your local bookstore or library, and some can be gotten with a simple Google search - but those are generally secondary sources. If you want to get at the primary literature, i.e. the journal articles written by the scientists who did the work that all the secondary sources are based on, it can be a little more complicated.

....What would be a source for the primary literature? Are papers freely available on that? All I know that in my field of work most of the papers can only be purchased or read in the Journal if you subscribe of course. At the moment I am lucky enough to have access to a huge amount of stuff via the university's network, but I'd guess many people interested do not have this option.

The situation you describe is pretty much where paleontology is now, though that is changing. If you do not have institutional access, you must pay a prohibitive $30 or higher fee to download (or sometimes just to rent!) the article. But don't let that dissuade you!

There are an increasing number of open-access journals that make all of their content free online, and an increasing number of paleo articles are published in them. PLoS ONE, PeerJ, and Acta Palaeontologica Polonica are open access journals with many paleontology articles. It may be well to choose your subjects based on the papers you can get, rather than choose the subject first...

BUT, if you really want a paper locked up behind a paywall, and you're not independently wealthy, there are still ways to get it! The first is to just search for the paper on Google Scholar. There are often PDFs of paywalled papers available free from other sites. Sometimes authors make papers available from their institutional profile pages. If you still can't find it, email the lead author and ask for a copy. Most researchers are glad to help interested laymen, though they are also very busy, so don't expect instant responses!

Approach your local institution of higher learning and see if they will let you get access through them. They may and they may not, but it's worth a shot. This is not a panacea, as no institution has access to all journals, but I would consider it the easiest route if you are likely to need lots of papers.

If you don't have direct access, no doubt a friend who does can help you out. I have asked for and received papers from helpful DTFers. There are also more formal paper-sharing groups, like academia.edu or the WIKIPALEO group on Facebook.

There is also a site called Sci-Hub that "liberates" paywalled articles and makes them freely available. Sci-Hub is nearly or actually illegal (the courts, I believe, are still considering the issue), so use as your own conscience and caution dictate. I personally have not used it so far.

[Viergacht]

You know what would be cool is if we could somehow organize a collection of photos of museum mounts taken by forum members as a reference.

[btb300]

Anyone who is interested in making up-to-date, accurate paleoart needs to know how to access the information they need for their projects. Now, some information can be gotten from the popular-interest and semi-technical books available at your local bookstore or library, and some can be gotten with a simple Google search - but those are generally secondary sources. If you want to get at the primary literature, i.e. the journal articles written by the scientists who did the work that all the secondary sources are based on, it can be a little more complicated.

....What would be a source for the primary literature? Are papers freely available on that? All I know that in my field of work most of the papers can only be purchased or read in the Journal if you subscribe of course. At the moment I am lucky enough to have access to a huge amount of stuff via the university's network, but I'd guess many people interested do not have this option.

The situation you describe is pretty much where paleontology is now, though that is changing. If you do not have institutional access, you must pay a prohibitive $30 or higher fee to download (or sometimes just to rent!) the article. But don't let that dissuade you!

There are an increasing number of open-access journals that make all of their content free online, and an increasing number of paleo articles are published in them. PLoS ONE, PeerJ, and Acta Palaeontologica Polonica are open access journals with many paleontology articles. It may be well to choose your subjects based on the papers you can get, rather than choose the subject first...

BUT, if you really want a paper locked up behind a paywall, and you're not independently wealthy, there are still ways to get it! The first is to just search for the paper on Google Scholar. There are often PDFs of paywalled papers available free from other sites. Sometimes authors make papers available from their institutional profile pages. If you still can't find it, email the lead author and ask for a copy. Most researchers are glad to help interested laymen, though they are also very busy, so don't expect instant responses!

Approach your local institution of higher learning and see if they will let you get access through them. They may and they may not, but it's worth a shot. This is not a panacea, as no institution has access to all journals, but I would consider it the easiest route if you are likely to need lots of papers.

If you don't have direct access, no doubt a friend who does can help you out. I have asked for and received papers from helpful DTFers. There are also more formal paper-sharing groups, like academia.edu or the WIKIPALEO group on Facebook.

There is also a site called Sci-Hub that "liberates" paywalled articles and makes them freely available. Sci-Hub is nearly or actually illegal (the courts, I believe, are still considering the issue), so use as your own conscience and caution dictate. I personally have not used it so far.

Thank you for elaborating on this and giving a wealth of great information. I didn't know about the free access journals you mentioned and I am familiar only with academia.edu from where I got some very interesting archeological papers. It's nice to have some insight on how these things work, I am sure there will be many others who will find it useful.

[Newt]

Viergacht - that is a good idea! Some folks have been posting photos from their museum visits here, but not in such a focused way.

btb300 - I'm glad it was somewhat helpful. I will add more thoughts on the subject as I have them, and of course welcome insights from other forum members.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Not to beat my own drum or anything but generally if someone mentions a paper and complains it is paywalled, I try to get it and post it for everyone. I have done this enough to say...frequently. I also have quite a few papers saved to my system...although sometimes finding the correct one can be a sorting headache. At one time I set up a thread I called "the paper chase" in hopes people would post papers and links to download them, as a method of free sharing those we could. It never really seemed to catch on, and I found myself the only one making an effort to post papers.
   I am able now and again to even get the odd and end book title in PDF when luck is on my side.

[E.D.G.E. (PainterRex)]

You know what would be cool is if we could somehow organize a collection of photos of museum mounts taken by forum members as a reference.

http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=4642.0

There you go!