Research Guides: Alumni and Community Members: Resources

Research on

We know research doesn't only occur in college and doesn't stop when you graduate...

Learn more about CSU Libraries' privileges for alumni and community members.

There is also a wealth of information out there if you know where to look. Use this page to get started!

Explore local resources

Your local public library may offer:

access to multidisciplinary databases, useful for finding journal articles and more
interlibrary loan services, which may facilitate your access to articles, books, and other materials unavailable through your public library's collections
reference staff able to help you find and access resources through your public library and beyond

Local college or university libraries may offer on-site access to resources and services for community members. These services may vary and some services may be fee-based.

Find free full-text articles

In addition to taking advantage of local resources, you can find and obtain free full-text articles at:

Directory of Open Access Journals
Search free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. Aims to cover all subjects and languages.
PubMed
Search more than 27 million citations for biomedical literature. After beginning your search, select "Free full text" under Text Availability in the sidebar.
Google Scholar
Identify journal articles and more. Note that free resources are mixed in with paywalled resources.

You can also take advantage of these open-source tools that can help you legally obtain free full-text articles:

Open Access Button
A tool by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) that searches thousands of sources. Search directly through the website or get the extension.
Unpaywall
An extension for Chrome or Firefox by Impactstory that searches thousands of open-access repositories worldwide.

Search Google Scholar

Consider government information

U.S Department of Health and Human Services
Searches multiple government sites, including hhs,gov, mentalhealth.gov, samhsa.gov, nih.gov, womenshealth.gov, ahrq.gov, and more.
Science.gov
Searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information.
U.S. Data & Statistics
Statistics from federal agencies, including Administration for Children and Families, National Institute of Health (and affiliated organizations), and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Govinfo.gov
Provides free public access to more than a million official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

Need more? Try our Government Information research guide.

Find books

These resources can help you identify books, media, and more. Use local resources like your public library to see if you can borrow the resources you find for free.