A reader writes in:
I’m always a bit annoyed/bummed when I see a cool looking brand new paper with an interesting abstract only to find that there is nowhere to get the paper. The journal hasn’t yet released it, the author doesn’t have it on a website, and it’s not on philpapers. It typically means I’ll never come back to it (often I see something in a weekly email I get saying what’s in the journals I like and this is a way I find things to read that aren’t central to my research but that catch my interest, so I look then and there in a moment of useful procrastination or never again). I wish everyone would follow the good advice on the APA blog!
Indeed, I very much encourage everyone to read the APA blog post this reader references. Independent scholars, as well as faculty and students at smaller colleges and universities that lack resources for certain journal subscriptions, can be at a real disadvantage when doing research. Self-archiving published articles on your own website or on philpapers can be a great way of counteracting this, as well as for making your work more accessible to a broader audience. In fact, this reader's comment reminded me that things are even more tricky with books. As a faculty member at a university that now does have good journal access, (which it didn't have in the past), I'm still continually frustrated by how difficult it can be to access many book chapters–which often aren't posted on repositories such as philpapers. Here, I think it is worth remembering that many book publishers do allow you to post 'accepted manuscripts' after certain embargo periods (usually 12-18 months)–so if you published a book chapter a while ago, it's now past the embargo period, and you still haven't self-archived it, now would be a great time to do so!
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