Why Isn’t This Article Free?

You get your weekly Faunalytics email and scan the latest studies. There it is! A summary of a report or article that covers just what you want to know for your campaign, program or personal outreach.

When you click through to read the full report in our library, though, it says, “abstract only.” To see the whole article, you have to pay, sometimes a lot. You’re disappointed, even frustrated.

So are we. At Faunalytics, we know how important it is to access the very best information to get the answers you need to help animals. That’s what we’re all about.

It’s not Faunalytics holding back articles and reports for sale. It’s the owners of the information. When you see an item labeled “abstract only” or that has just a press release, that’s all we’ve seen, too. Let’s look at why that is and what we can do to get you crucial information.

Why Does Some Information Come with a Fee?

• Journals and other publications rely on subscription and sales revenue. They worry people won’t buy if content is available free.
• Private firms make money by selling research reports rather than giving them away. For example, Mintel periodically produces a report on the market for veg foods in the U.S. and in the U.K. that it sells to companies. The most recent U.S. report cost nearly $4,000.
• Associations only make full reports available to their members. And groups such as the National Cattleman’s Beef Association aren’t eager to share their precious research findings with animal advocates at any price.
• Any fees paid for articles and reports shown in our library go to entities like these. Faunalytics does not receive any payment on such sales.

We would have to pay the same fees you do to get full copies. Even if Faunalytics had the budget to purchase all these materials, the original owners usually legally prohibit buyers from sharing the reports or articles with others.

What Faunalytics Can Do

We heard from you in our recent survey that you’re concerned about having to pay for articles. We hope that you now have a better sense of why that’s the case. Here are additional actions we’ve taken:

• Clearly labeling “abstract only” articles in our weekly email, and on citation pages in our database, so you know what to expect from the outset.
• Created a new page with alternate resources for finding full text versions of articles. You can find a link to this page in the right sidebar of every database item.

What You Can Do

• Find out if you can get the full article even if we can’t. If you’re with a university, you likely have access to a wealth of publications that we don’t. Sometimes alumni can use these online databases. Even your local library might be able to help. See more suggestions on our new “How to Get Full Text Documents” page.
• Let us know about research that isn’t already in our database. If you see an item that might be suitable for our database, and isn’t in it yet, you can let us know.
• Share your ideas. Are there other ways you’d recommend for us to share key findings from paid reports and articles with library subscribers? We just recently found out about rental sites, so maybe you know of something we haven’t seen yet
• Donate to support Faunalytics purchases. This is a very tangible way for you to invest to bring valuable new knowledge to the field. Sponsor a single article, a few months or a year of must-have information.

The Faunalytics library is the best place to get the answers you need to create more change for animals. In our survey, you told us that you value the library highly. We’re constantly working to expand and improve this unique resource. Watch for more how-tos and enhancements in the months ahead.