How do I find the full text of conference papers?

Conferences all handle publishing their proceedings differently, so there are several ways to try to locate the full text of a conference paper. Some conferences publish all of the papers that were presented, others only publish abstracts. For poster presentations, only abstracts will be available. There are a few places to try to locate the full text of conference proceedings.

Association Websites

Some associations post their conference proceedings on their websites. Doing an internet search for the title of the conference is always a good way to start looking for a conference paper.   

Library Databases

Several of the Library databases have large collections of conference proceedings.

• IEEE Xplore Digital Library: Contains papers from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers sponsored conferences.
• LearnTechLib - The Learning and Technology Library: Has a large collection of papers from education and information technology conferences.

Google Scholar

Another way to see if the full text of a conference paper is available is to search Google Scholar for the title of the paper. Sometimes the full text will be available through a link to the right of the paper title. Other times, clicking on the paper title will take you to the full text.

Note: If you access Google Scholar from our webpage it will automatically connect to the Walden Library databases. 

If you access Google Scholar directly from the internet you will have to follow the steps to manually connect Google Scholar to the Walden Library. This connection is erased when you clear your cache and cookies, and will need to be redone. 

Contact the Author

When you can't locate the paper by searching online, you can always try contacting the author of the paper. Many times the author's email address will be included in the abstract of the paper. If it isn't, you can try searching the Internet for the author's name and some keywords related to the field in which he or she researches.

More Information:

• What are conference proceedings?
• Find Full Text guide
• How do I write a conference proposal?
• What are some tips for giving a conference presentation?

Do you have more questions about conference proceedings? Ask a Librarian!