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Lean Library

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

Users200KCurrent public install base
Rating3.4Store average score
Reviews142Public review volume
Manifest versionV3Extension platform version
7-day growth0Net users gained this week
7-day growth rate0%Relative weekly velocity
Preview

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Trend

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User Growth Over Time

200K200K200K200K200K2026年7月15日2026年7月18日2026年7月21日Latest: 200K
Rating trend

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7-day rating change

Start
3.43
Latest
3.43
7-day rating change
0.00
3.333.383.433.483.532026年7月15日2026年7月18日2026年7月21日Latest: 3.43
2026年7月15日2026年7月21日
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Technical snapshot

Version, languages, and crawl freshness

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Version2026.5.0
ManifestV3
Size11.91MiB
Languages1English
Published
Store updated
Last crawled
English
Overview

Product summary

Review the store description, core capabilities, and common use cases.

Providing an uninterrupted research rhythm

Lean Library is a free end-to-end research tool that brings your library’s services and resources directly into your research workflow, no matter where you start your research. Whether you are discovering and accessing academic content or saving references, Lean Library puts your library right at the heart of every research journey. Instantly and legally unlock millions of academic articles, eBooks, and open access content, avoid paywalls, and receive customised guidance from your library. Save references, highlight and annotate content, get journal alerts, and build information literacy skills with article retraction alerts and trust ratings—all from within your browser.

Ready to start using Lean Library?

Install the extension, select your institution and begin researching! Even if you aren’t

affiliated with an institution, you can still get quick and seamless redirection to open access materials absolutely free by downloading the extension and selecting Lean Library Open as your library.

Please note, the Lean Library browser extension works together with Lean Library

Reviews

Recent review snapshot

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Store average score3.4Chrome Web Store aggregate rating, including ratings without synced review text
Synced text average3.1Average computed only from synced review bodies below
Reviews with text103Synced review bodies
Total ratings / reviews142Chrome Web Store public rating/review count

Store average score: 3.4. The bars below are calculated from synced review text only, so they may be empty for extensions that have public ratings but no synced comments yet.

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29
Simon Andreas2024年1月31日
2

In principle it works really well, but it clashes with Mendeley. When I login to Scopus using my University account, Lean Library is conflicting with that account as well. This prevents me from importing references to Mendeley from Scopus and consequently I have to pause the Lean Library extension.

Version 2024.1.5Language en
Private Name2023年9月30日
3

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.

Language en
1 helpful · 1 not helpful
Swati Jain2023年9月20日
3

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.

Language en
Farran2023年7月30日
2

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.

Language en
2 helpful · 0 not helpful
James H2023年6月28日
2

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.

Language en
1 helpful · 0 not helpful
Mike K2023年6月15日
5

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.

Language en
2 helpful · 0 not helpful
Vinee Purohit2023年6月14日
1

Cannot access it when I need it. Will show up when I dont 'talk to a librarian'. Previous version was 100,000 fold better.

Language en
1 helpful · 0 not helpful
Oscar Hill2023年2月14日
1

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!

Language en
3 helpful · 0 not helpful
Cees Jol2022年8月4日
1

Occasionally uses nearly 100% GPU for lengthy periods. M1 Max, Monterey 12.5

Language en
2 helpful · 0 not helpful
Daniel Korchinski2022年4月17日
2

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.

Language en
8 helpful · 0 not helpful