Accessing certain pieces of information on the Internet can be quite complicated, and academic works are a good example: Between absurd paywalls and links that break over time, many studies virtually disappear from the Web. Fortunately, there are resources like Internet Archive Scholar, a search engine maintained by the Internet Archive that provides access to more than 25 million research articles and similar documents.
There's no point denying it: Some things simply disappear from the Web. From classic copyright conflicts to retired platforms, along with drivers for old computers and a nightmare of broken links, let's just say the Internet isn't the ideal place to preserve data.
Technical documentation and academic works are not immune to this. In fact, I think they are two of the most affected categories. However, there are initiatives that seek to protect and support that information. One of them is Internet Archive Scholar, maintained by the Internet Archive. There we can find more than 25 million research articles and scientific documents, ranging from old journals from the 18th century to the latest conference proceedings.
Access millions of research articles with Internet Archive Scholar
The official presentation of the project dates back to March 2021, and the Internet Archive shared some usage examples on its official blog. One of the most interesting affects the Open Journal of Hematology. Dozens of its papers vanished into thin air (meaning they could not be resolved via DOI), as did the original page of its publisher. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine managed to capture those documents and integrate them into its database.
Internet Archive Scholar works in parallel with Fatcat.wiki, a user-editable catalog with more than 130 million entries. At the same time, interested users can search the full text of articles, prioritizing a keyword or a specific phrase. However, Internet Archive Scholar is a work in progress, and as its metadata improves, searches will become more precise. Give it a try!
Official site: Click here
