scholarly-metadata
scholar.archive.org / fatcat
The Internet Archive's scholarly catalogue (fatcat), offering full-text search across more than 25 million open-access papers, including preservation copies of articles. You search it through the scholar.archive.org website. It is best reached via the web interface for now, since its lookup API was unreliable when last checked.
No programmatic check, opens the archive’s own search.
Why it’s useful & how it works
Internet Archive Scholar is the resource to try when a paper you need has vanished from its original publisher URL, or when you suspect a journal has ceased operation. It combines the Fatcat open catalog with the Internet Archive's preservation holdings, meaning it sometimes holds full-text copies of articles that are no longer available anywhere else on the web. You search it by title, author, or DOI on scholar.archive.org. The website is the most reliable access route; Echo links you there so you can search directly.
What’s inside
More than 35 million research articles with full-text access as of early 2024, spanning open-access papers, preserved copies of at-risk publications, and outputs from journals and repositories that have since disappeared.
API access
https://api.fatcat.wiki/v0/release/lookup?doi= <doi> (no key)
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 746 ms
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 974 ms
- API, direct
- Unreachable 10.3 s (fetch failed: Connect Timeout Error)
- API, through a proxy
- Timed out 22.8 s (This operation was aborted)
Benchmark coverage
Found 0 of 8 test items (0%) in the Academic papers cluster. Median response 172 ms.
By how well known the item is: 0/3 well-known, 0/3 mid, 0/2 obscure .
Reachability measured 2026-08-22. Benchmark run 2026-08-22.
Access
Programmatic API access (a key may be required, see the API tag).