Lean Library

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A library-approved tool to unlock access to academic papers.

Latest reviews

• (2023-09-30) Sarah Marvin: It tells me I have access to an article, and when I click, it takes me back to the paywall article. When I try to log in through lean open access to read the article, I have the option, but what is my login? I cannot for the life of me find anywhere where I created or can view or even create an account or log in. I've sent notifications to both my possible email addresses and received nothing.
• (2023-09-20) Swati Jain: It keeps refreshing every 1 second even when I know I have access to the article. I have re-installed it and will update if the problem persists.
• (2023-07-30) Farran: Hi there, This was useful for a bit (although it often redirects me back to the same article?? And redirects me to an article when I'm already able to access the one that I'm currently viewing???) However A few days ago, it started interfering with the Google Translate website. Just now I went through all my extensions, disabling them one by one. I can confirm that this extension is the problem. In Translate, when I am typing, some of the letters don't pass through to the input box. From a bit of testing, it appears that something is causing the input box to lose input focus, approximately at 1Hz. Please check this out! I have no idea why an extension such as this would be doing such a thing with the input focus. Very strange. And, naturally, I cannot use it because Translate is a core part of my daily life. Thanks for this extension all the same, it is a useful concept. Judging by the other reviews, it seems that the code is not written well, cleanly, and/or it is badly designed because the kind of bugs people are mentioning just don't really align with a piece of software that is simply meant to provide access to academic papers! So, please go back and refactor the code, ensure that it isn't doing unnecessary functions, whatever whatever. I notice that the last update was on 25th July, so being 5 days ago, that would coincide with the beginning of this bug.
• (2023-06-28) James H: I am not sure what happened, but there must have been an update or something, as now there are just too many click and options to choose from. And when searching online odd search results keep popping up on my screen. All very confusing.
• (2023-06-15) Mike K: It used to be really annoying and refresh every page every second. But since a week or so (when I reinstalled it) it has been performing great.
• (2023-06-14) Vinee Purohit: Cannot access it when I need it. Will show up when I dont 'talk to a librarian'. Previous version was 100,000 fold better.
• (2023-02-14) Oscar Hill: Strange and frustrating bug where this application keeps refreshing my page/switching me back and forth between pdfs. It might be that it interacts badly with Zotero, in which case I know which I'm keeping!
• (2022-08-04) Cees Jol: Occasionally uses nearly 100% GPU for lengthy periods. M1 Max, Monterey 12.5
• (2022-04-17) Daniel Korchinski: The pop-up and redirect are often mistimed or useless. For example, when browsing wikipedia on "Maxwell's equations" I don't need a message saying that "full text alternatives exist" with an option to access a textbook on Clifford algebras. Some redirects or log-ins are useless. For example, I have to disable the extension to access "https://authors.aps.org/" without being kicked into a redirect loop when trying to submit a paper for publication! I don't need a proxy to access the paper submission site. A similar issue (minus the redirect loop) occurs when reading open-access or free access articles: I don't need to be logged in to access these, so the redirect / log-in procedure is just a time waste. Finally, there are times when I arrive at a page I SHOULD have access to, and the extension sits there like a useless lump and does nothing, e.g. go to physical review E, click on the first interesting looking paywalled article, click the "pdf" option, and I'm told I don't have access.
• (2022-01-20) Sage Blodgett: If it worked it would be amazing... but it doesn't. Don't waste your time nor storage space on this extention
• (2021-12-22) Gertrude: The library I work for is in the process of setting this up. It's looking good so far, and I think it will be very useful for students who are not on campus, helping them get access to library resources.
• (2021-12-18) Kevin Zhou: On OSX, randomly causes the whole Chrome window to become a blank screen every hour or so -- impossible to work with it turned on.
• (2021-11-29) Olivia zhu (Olivia): I want to use it but I can't find my uni library, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, please include more libraries, thank you.
• (2021-11-08) Dienst E-bronnen: A great deal of our patrons do not always use our library discovery system (~ catalogue). The LL extension comes in very handy when they are browsing/Googleing through online publisher content. It offers them seamless proxied access to content they are entitled to via our institution, we can easily provide them with information in Assist messages, and it refers them as much as possible to our discovery system as a reference for precisely knowing our licensed publisher content. Contrary to other reviews, we are not experiencing any timelag due to the extension in our browsers, nor did we get patron complaints concerning this.
• (2021-11-08) Natalie Wakefield: The Lean Library browser extension is a brilliantly handy tool providing seamless access to library eResources. As a librarian, I often recommend this extension to library users seeking tips on accessing resources when working off campus. The comprehensive coverage including journals and eBooks is impressive, and we particularly like the signposting to open access alternatives.
• (2021-11-03) Paul Suijker: A quick note from a librarian. Here at TU Delft, the use of the Lean Library extension has gradually increased from 4,400 to 7,600 unique users per month in the past year, making it one of the most popular extensions. Its use is not entirely undisputed, but in my opinion the advantages (easy off-campus access to online resources) greatly outweigh the disadvantages (speed, html changes).
• (2021-11-03) LIBIS Team: Lean Library is a handy browser extension to get access to the e-resources licensed by your institution, on every website and from every location. When Lean Library is installed, the extension detects whether you have access to the the content you encounter or not and simplifies the process of getting access to e-resources off-campus. A pop-pup hands you all necessary information where needed. For KU Leuven users, more information on this tool is available at: https://bib.kuleuven.be/english/collections-access-borrowing/access-to-e-resources/lean-library/leanlibrary.
• (2021-10-31) Harry Zachariah Rubin: Using Lean Library Open massively simplifies the process of getting access to online resources provided by academic libraries. I particularly love that it unlocks access to paywalled articles!!
• (2021-10-29) Laura Tobler: Lean Library helps me a lot in finding articles. Today I was referred to a free alternative when I encountered a technical error on the publisher's website. Often Lean Library surprises me with news of an eBook in my library that I didn't know about yet.
• (2021-10-27) Rory Wood: Really useful for accessing my uni library resources when working from home. Super convenient.
• (2021-10-27) Tim O'Neill: Massively simplifies the process of getting access to electronic resources provided by my academic library. I particularly love the ability to unlock open access alternatives when you hit paywalls too.
• (2021-10-20) Christina M: Very useful for research and finding resources but slowed down my keyboard response on Google Chrome and made using Google Docs and other websites very laggy. Got so frustrating I unfortunately had to disable the extension. Very disappointing. If this issue were to be fixed, I'd redownload it.
• (2021-10-06) David de Muinck Keizer: For many papers, its shows the text "Full-Text Achieved You are currently on a Full Text article. Good luck studying!", while the full text isn't shown anywhere. There's no button anywhere on the page or in the plugin to view the full text. The full text certainly isn't displayed anywhere. The original paywall on the page is still in tact. I have seen this at many sites. The amount of times that the plugin actually provides a button to download the pdf is very limited. Please fix this bug. Otherwise this plugin is useless.
• (2021-10-06) Alex K9onit: Slows down my browser when installed, so eventually uninstalled it. The extension kept taking me to my University page so that I can't browse on the publisher pages that I want to. Kept popping up with suggestions?? that I don't need. Avoid!
• (2021-09-09) Matthew Smith: As a librarian, I've used LEAN for around 3 years now. During the past eighteen months, it has saved me a huge amount of time while working from home. Granted, I will be spending more time on retrieving articles than most but I am yet to find a downside to this tool - I recommend it to all my students and the feedback is generally great. I work on a relatively high-spec machine but also run with a huge number of tabs / programs open and haven't noticed performance issues mentioned by others. Do sometimes find the pop-ups a bit slow though (i.e. the webpage has loaded but the pop-up takes a few more seconds). Disclaimer: while the above is my honest opinion, it is important to note that I have contact with the developers as LEAN is a product we offer at my university. I believe it to be an incredibly useful tool, but want to flag this relationship in the spirit of transparency.
• (2021-06-01) Mark Lukacs: breaks all the time
• (2021-05-24) Robert-Jan Pierik: Doesn't work in maybe 80% of the time
• (2021-05-12) MonkeDiesTwice: I need the extension for Uni, but it makes chrome extermely laggy and unresponsive. And that is on a high spec computer. I have to uninstall the extension everytime I finished using it, in order to use chrome comfortably.
• (2021-05-05) Joseph Smith: I find the extension very useful and it makes my research journey much smoother than before. Would recommend it.
• (2021-05-04) AS Z: While all my other extensions work fine, Library Access doesn't seem to work anymore, either with Firefox or Chrome browsers. When I click on the icon, nothing happens, it's blank. I am no longer logged in through my university log-ins while I visit a site the university has subscribed to. I don't know what to do...
• (2021-05-04) Dóra Schuller: Very bad user experience. When turned on, this app also wants me to log in to access publicly available articles and Wikipedia pages! Every time I load a page, it takes me away from there to the login, so I have to keep it turned off so I can browse peacefully. Also, in some sites I have to log in 3 times to download an article.
• (2021-04-22) Dave Gerrard: Should come with a health warning. Breaks links. Pollutes your referencing software. Academics should not use. Clicking the extension gives access but changes the URL in my browser bar. As someone who likes to copy sources by copy and paste, this is a fail. That URL is now useless for anyone outside my institution. Worse, I use a Zotero extension to store and manage references. The modified URLs then get imported into my referencing software. I doubt very much whether they will work in a few years time.
• (2021-02-11) Yibo Chen: The extension always doesn't work. Each time I wanna use the extension, I need to wait for quite long time before it starts to work. Hope Library Access could improve the extension to be faster and more stable.
• (2021-02-05) Horvath Daniel: Ez a kiegeszito nagyon segiti a tanulasomat. Javallott!
• (2021-02-03) Kusal Udawatte: This extension is super helpful!
• (2021-02-01) Julian Keizer: Slows down Google Chrome (Version 88.0.4324.104 (Official Build) (64-bit)) enormously. Cannot recommend.
• (2020-12-26) Alexander Alt: Works fairly well most of the time but every now end then, it just uses a lot of CPU even when I'm not actually doing anything in Chrome. This hasn't changed over the last few months (and last few versions of Chrome), it seems to happen when I wake my laptop up after it being in sleep mode but I do that a lot so that might be a coincidence.
• (2020-11-10) Daniel Blue: Great tool for my studies and research!
• (2020-10-07) Charles Knight: Something broken in update - tries to take over google search so that it is unable.
• (2020-09-18) ME Anxiety: Very handy when i'm on websites that are not traditionally supported by my university, but somehow are anyway.
• (2020-08-15) James C: Useful but uses up 500Mb+ of RAM on "idle". Almost as if this extension is mining crypto or something while it's installed and running.
• (2020-04-06) Joost de Host: Very useful extension, hence the extra stars, but makes the chrome browser extremely slow, hence only two.
• (2020-04-03) Juan Andino: Helpful app but you need to either change the default so that the access pop-up doesn't not come up unprompted OR provide users that option. More often than note, this pop-up is super annoying and it would be helpful to just be able to click the icon when you need help with institutional access to an article. Using most up to date version of chrome
• (2020-04-02) Matthew Harvey: Great premise but causing continuously HUGE CPU usage, making Chrome unbearably slow. Defaulting to whitelisting only known journal sites might help. Developer: try using this on an old or mobile processored computer with more than a few tabs open.
• (2020-03-29) Sandipan Das: Accessing to uni library resources are good. However, at some point it blocks out your regular internet. Meaning you can't load pages using your browser, at least in chrome. I am using Ubuntu 18.04 with Chrome.
• (2020-03-23) Míriam R. García: It is a great idea, unfortunately if I activate this extension with Chromium (linux computer), internet stops working on chromium at some point. The solution is either to reinitilize chormium or stop the extension. Quite unfortunately because it took me a long time to find the problem with my internet conection.
• (2020-03-17) Kate: Works remarkably well! I always get instant access to my university hospital's library via this extension. Works as intended.
• (2020-02-05) Rahul Jajodia: We have access to a lot of journals from our university using eduroam. Been using this to access papers from home recently and its a very easy process. Makes life easier. Will hold on a better review until i use it more
• (2020-01-28) Ben Bartlett: I hate that I am forced to use this extension for remote library access. It intermittently slows my internet speeds to unusable levels (with sites that should not go through a proxy, such as Twitter, taking over 60 seconds to load) and increases CPU and memory impact of Chrome significantly.
• (2020-01-09) Andrey Fedorov: It's a very strange extension. First, there is no way to selectively use it for specific pages. It often applies itself to pages when not needed, messing up the functionality of those pages. Then I need to go to Extensions settings to manually disable it altogether. Second, it does not work reliably. There are pages where it activates, I see the icon is green, but the content is still not available, or magazine web site still shows "sign in" and "subscribe" links. I am on the verge to remove it completely, but keeping just in case as a last resort.