How to Find Open Access Papers with Claude
Find free academic papers with Claude and ToolRouter. Open access research discovery.
Tool
Claude helps you navigate the open access landscape through iterative searching. Find papers on your topic, identify which are freely available, and explore alternative access routes for paywalled papers such as preprints on arXiv or author manuscripts. The conversation adapts to help you access the research you need.
Connect ToolRouter to Claude
1Go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector
2Enter the details below and click Add
Name
ToolRouterURL
https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp3Done — works on Claude chat, desktop, and mobile
Steps
Once connected (see setup above), use the Academic Research tool:
- Ask Claude: "Find open access papers on deep reinforcement learning using academic-research"
- Claude returns papers with open access availability noted
- Ask: "Which of these are freely available?"
- Access the open versions directly
Example Prompt
Try this with Claude using the Academic Research tool
Find freely available papers on graph neural networks. I do not have journal access so I need open access versions only.
Tips
- Many paywalled papers have free preprint versions on arXiv
- Ask Claude to check for open access versions of specific papers
- Author manuscripts on university repositories are usually legal open versions