Question: I would like a copy of an article that has been published by a Mintie or mentioned on the Forum. Can I request a copy of it on the e-forum? What about if I obtain the article through another source – can I tell folks on the Forum to contact me if they want a copy of it?
First, the bad news:
Publishers of scientific journals have strict rules about how their articles can be obtained. It is illegal (a violation of copyright law) to post copies or pdf’s of published articles on any public site – you must download them from the publisher (and pay for them) or access them from a public institution library such as a university, where you have access (usually restricted to students and faculty). For anyone to publish a copyrighted article on the MINT website (or send one as a result of a public request) is a violation of copyright law and a serious liability for MINT.
Now, the good news:
One year after they are published, scholarly articles will be available on Pub Med Central (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/), which is a free, full-text archive of scientific literature. Pub Med is a wonderful resource for Minties who would like to have access to the scholarly literature but do not have formal affiliation with a university or a lot of money to pay for articles. There are currently more than 7400 scientific articles in the public domain using the search term “motivational interviewing” and more than 9800 for the search term “motivational enhancement therapy”. If you need advice or mentoring on how to use a public data base, remember that Minties can ask for help from each other on the e-forum. It’s easy to start with Pub Med – give it a try – you might get lost in the wonderful articles available there!
More good news:
If you, as a private individual (not as a member of MINT), would like to request a pre-print copy of an article, you may do so by contacting the author through your personal e-mail (not on the MINT website). Authors often have discretion about distributing their articles privately. It is very likely that the MINTIE who has published the article can send it to you, either as a pdf or a pre-publication manuscript, if you make this request directly via e-mail. Of course, we do not guarantee that the author will answer such e-mails, but this might be just the way to obtain that hard-to-find, obscure article that is especially interesting to Minties.
