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Find Full Text: Overview and FAQs

Full text at Walden Library

Walden Library has millions of full-text articles, books, reports, dissertations, and more. This guide shows you how to locate full text, with tips for finding items beyond Walden, whether online or in local libraries. 

  • Course Readings 
    Find course readings quickly with our library course guides.
  • Articles 
    Learn how to locate the full text for articles at Walden and online, and how to buy them.
  • Books
    Find books in the library, free chapters or previews on the Internet, and more. 
  • Local Libraries
    Use WorldCat.org to locate books and articles at libraries near you.

How can I get an item not at Walden Library?

  1. For articles, search by article title at Google Scholar to look for a free copy. (Learn more about searching in Google Scholar).
    For books, look for a free copy or book preview online. (Learn more about locating books).
  2. Find your resource in a local library.
  3. Buy an article.
  4. Use Document Delivery Service (for articles and book chapters, not entire issues of journals or entire books). We'll try to find it at another library and email you a copy for free (restrictions apply). Learn more about Document Delivery service.

If you can use another item instead of the precise item you're searching, we can help you find a similar item. Contact the library,  tell us about your topic, and we'll give you search suggestions to find related articles and books in full text.

Why are there articles in the library that don't have full text?

Our research databases are more than places to get full text. They're also useful for discovering what's available on a topic through abstract-only results. This is especially important for doctoral students. Deeper research and inquiry requires being aware of what's out there, even if full text is not immediately available.

While we provide access to millions of full-text items across Walden's diverse programs, we cannot afford everything. Full-text content is also subject to publisher restrictions and competition; items may not be available in online formats or on platforms that we use due to exclusivity deals beyond our control.

Some articles are also under embargo, where the publisher will not immediately release the full-text electronic version of an article in order to protect their print sales. Most embargoes last one year. After the embargo period is over, the full text will appear in our databases.

Learn about limiting to full text only.

The link to full text doesn't work.

This might be because the article is under embargo, where publishers withhold the full text for a certain period of time, usually for one year. Our full-text linking software does not recognize the embargo, so you may still see the link even if we technically don't have access to the full text.

Use the Find an Exact Article guide to confirm whether or not we have full text by looking up the journal to see if we have the year you need. Don't hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance!

Need search tips?

This guide covers getting full text for an item you've already found or know about. To learn about search strategies, see: