How do you find articles on AJOL?
Finding the research articles you need...
AJOL provides online access to hundreds of research journals published in Africa, but AJOL is not the publisher of any of the journals to which we provide free hosting. AJOL is an online library of research journals published by various entities all over the continent.
The heart of the website lies in the JOURNALS menu, which you can each by clicking the link called JOURNALS at the top of the page on the AJOL website. Using this function, you can display the journals on AJOL alphabetically, by subject category or by country. This helps you find journals that can contain research in your field. You can also search journals by JPPS rating.
To find individual articles of interest, enter your specific search terms in the white Search text box near the top of every AJOL page, and press enter. If you are using a slow internet connection and the images in the alphabetical view are taking too long to download, click on LIST ALL at the end of the A-Z list near the top. This will show a simple list of titles without the journal cover images and text descriptions.
You can also choose to view only the free full text Open Access or free-to-read journals that are part of AJOL, which are indicated by the orange open padlock symbol next to the Open Access (free full text) journal titles. From a journal's AJOL homepage, you can find their author guidelines by clicking the "ABOUT" link at the top of the journal page.
By registering for free with AJOL, you also can sign up to receive email alerts when new issues from your journals of interest are added to the website.
How to search for information on the AJOL site
There is a quick Google site search at the very top right hand side of each web page on the AJOL site. You can use this to find specific and relevant articles, or to search for authors' names, or journal titles.
The Journal Home Pages on AJOL
When you open a particular journal by clicking "VIEW JOURNAL", or "CURRENT ISSUE" under the title on the one of the BROWSE pages, links in the bar at the top of the AJOL web page that are specific to that particular journal become active. Contact details for the journal can be found by clicking ABOUT THE JOURNAL, and older issues of the journal can be found by clicking ARCHIVE.
If a journal has its own website, that link is provided on the journal's own AJOL homepage.
Can you just read the abstract for free, without downloading the article?
All abstracts that have been provided to AJOL are free to be read by everyone using the site. If you click on the underlined article titles in the journal issues, it will open the abstract for that article. Please note that although all abstracts are free to read, not all articles are free to read. Look for the orange padlock icon to see which journals provide full free access to their content.
Accessing the full text articles
If the full text of the article is available on the AJOL site, there will be a link called "PDF" to the right of the article title, or from the abstract. If you click on that, you will be able to download an article.
If it is an Open Access article, the download will begin immediately. If it is an article from a subscription-based journal, the system will only allow download after a credit card payment, or if you qualify for a small quota of free articles.
Otherwise, you can ask your librarian to sign up to AJOL. Please note that you need to be registered (this is free) and logged in on AJOL to download full-text articles from subscription-based journals. Full text articles published by AJOL’s Open Access (OA) journal partners are, of course, free to download, WITHOUT registering or logging in.
Please note that AJOL is legally obligated to charge readers to access full text of our subscription-based journal partners. AJOL would love it if all articles were free-to-read, but this decision lies with each journal's publishing entity. Income from the article download charges for subscription-based journals is sent on to the originating journal (less AJOL cost-recovery).
| Country Type* | Delivery Type | Charge in US$ for articles from the subscription-based journals |
| Low-income country | Monthly quota (maximum 3) free | $ 0 |
| Lower Middle-income country | AJOL-subsidized | $ 9 |
| Upper Middle-income country | AJOL-subsidized | $ 15 |
| High-income country | Full rates | $ 27 |
| * Country type classification is based on World Bank lists (Excel link on that site) updated annually. | ||
