Visit a Research Library (colleges, universities and some cities)

Public universities make nearly all of their resources available to people who are in the library.

Visit your Public Library.

Many public libraries have article databases, even remotely accessible, and have interlibrary loan privileges (free or at a cost).  The Los Angeles Public Library has many article databases (and electronic books) that are available remotely to to anyone who has ever visited and gotten a card.  It may be worth a vist if you are ever in the LAPL area.

Free and open access research resources (databases of articles etc)

• Google Scholar - Most everyone who has ever used the Internet is familiar with Google, but when looking for more scholarly resources, Google Scholar can be a more useful resource.  Type in your words and get a list of journal articles, conference proceedings, government reports etc... You will likely not have access to most of the items that come up, but you might have some access and you will at least know what is out there.
• PubMed
  A free database of medical literature.  You will likely not be able to get to many of the papers, but you may not want to.  The abstracts are often very informative. 
• Agricola
  A free database of agricultural literature.  The abstracts may be informative, but you will likely have to go to your public library to order the most interesting articles from interlibrary loan.
• Ingenta connect
  A general scholarly database. Clicking on the title of the articles will often provide you with an abstract, but only resources marked with a blue F symbol will be available free off-campus.
  
  

Scholarly journals which are free or have free backfiles

• Highwire - 37 Free science journals and 238 science journals with free back issues.
• PubMed Central - Free articles
• JAMA and Archives - Free six months after publication with registration
• BioMed Central - All Content is free and peer reviewed, many with high impact factors

* Current UCR students, faculty, and staff have all priveliges including interlibrary loan, remote access to online resources, and access to SciFinder Scholar.  UCR/UC Alumni, holders of a Riverside Public Library card, and Friends of the UCR Libraries have priveliges to check out books, and all of the public has access to all of our resources while in the library except for SciFinder Scholar.  There are some other catagories of people with certain priveliges, this is a general statement.