Frequently asked questions

On this page, you can find answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about Cambridge Core.

Select a topic below to view questions in that area.

What is Cambridge Core?

Cambridge Core is the new academic platform from Cambridge University Press. It replaces Cambridge Journals Online, Cambridge Books Online, Cambridge Histories Online, Cambridge Companions Online, and Shakespeare Survey Online and combines content from them all.

Content

Are all Cambridge books and journals available on Cambridge Core?

Cambridge University Press has made more than 30,000 ebooks available on Cambridge Core – primarily recently published works. Almost all recently published titles – and many older titles – are available on Cambridge Core, including Cambridge ebooks, Cambridge Companions, Cambridge Histories and Shakespeare Survey Online.

All 360 peer-reviewed journals and their digitised archives are available online. View a complete list or search by subject on the ‘Browse subject’ pages.

In addition, we have a range of individual digital offerings on other platforms, which we look forward to bringing onto Cambridge Core over the next few years. For more information about additional digital collections, please visit the ‘Other Digital Products’ page.

How do I submit an article for a journal?

To submit an article, find the journal you are looking for in our full list. On the journal page, click the “Submit your article” button under the search bar. You can then follow the directions on this page.

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Access to content

Is it possible to trial Cambridge Core prior to making a purchase?

Institutions may arrange a free, no obligation 30-day trial of Cambridge Core. Please contact us for more information.

For the Americas: online@cambridge.org
For the UK and Rest of the World: library.sales@cambridge.org

How do I purchase access to content available on Cambridge Core?

If you are a librarian or purchasing agent at your institution and would like more information on pricing or on how to purchase content available on Cambridge Core, please visit our purchasing models page or contact us for more information.

For further information:

Americas: online@cambridge.org
Rest of the World: library.sales@cambridge.org

Can I purchase or rent individual access to an article?

A number of articles are available to buy on Cambridge Core. Those that are available will display an 'add to cart' button. Article rental is not currently available - we may introduce the ability to rent articles in the future.

You are also able to recommend content unavailable to you by selecting the ‘recommend to your librarian’ button.

Can I purchase or rent individual access to a book chapter?

Chapter purchase or rental is not available on Cambridge Core at the moment. In the future, we will have the ability for you to purchase access to a book chapter.

If you would like to get access to a piece of content, you can use the ‘recommend to your librarian’ button, or click the 'Buy the print book' button to purchase a print copy of the book.

Can I purchase access to Cambridge Core content through my consortium?

If you wish to purchase access to content on Cambridge Core through your library consortium, you can pass their details to us and we will contact them to arrange your deal. Contact online@cambridge.org for North America or onlinepublications@cambridge.org for UK and Rest of World for further details.

Are there any archival rights?

Customers should refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale that are part of our purchasing process for full details on archival access.

How do I activate a journal subscription?

There are two ways to activate a journal subscription depending on whether it is for an individual, or an institution.

For institutional subscriptions - In your account area, select “Content holdings”. In the “Activate journal subscription” field, enter your 10 digit subscription number and click Activate.

For individual subscriptions - In your account area, select “My content”. In the “Activate journal subscription” field, enter your 10 digit subscription number and click Activate.

How do I find my subscriber number?

When you purchase a subscription, either direct from Cambridge or via a subscription agent, you will be sent your subscription number by email if we have your email address, if not, by post.

If you are receiving print versions of the journal, the subscriber number appears on the mailing sheet you get in the journal package. If your journal has been dispatched from the UK, you will find the number just above your address. If your journal has been dispatched from North America, you will find the number just below the barcode and just after the customer number. If you do not have any record of the number and you purchased the subscription via an agent, please contact the agent in the first instance. In case of difficulty, please contact us.

How do I redeem an access code?

To redeem an access code, you need a Cambridge Core account. If you do not have a Cambridge Core account, register here.

If you already have a Cambridge Core account, you can redeem an access code by following these steps:

1. Log in to your Cambridge Core account
2. In your account area, select “My content”
3. Enter your access code in the “Redeem access code” field
4. Click Activate
5. A message will appear confirming successful activation

How do I activate a society membership?

In your account area, select “My societies”. Under the heading “Activate society membership”, enter the Society ID and membership number into the relevant boxes and click Submit.

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Your personal account

How do I access my account?

Select the blue ‘login’ (if not yet logged in) or ‘My account’ (if logged in) button on the top-right corner of your screen to access your account.

How do I change my password?

In your account area, select “My account settings” then select the “Change password” tab and enter your current and new password in the appropriate fields. When you are finished, click Save.

I had an account on Cambridge Journals Online or Cambridge Books Online, how do I log in to Cambridge Core?

All accounts from Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books Online have been migrated across to Cambridge Core. If you previously had an account on Cambridge Journals Online or Cambridge Books Online it is important you log in to Cambridge Core using the email address associated to your old account to ensure continued access to content.

For security reasons, passwords from the previous platform have not been brought across. If you are attempting to log in to Cambridge Core for the first time with your Cambridge Journals Online account or Cambridge Books Online account details, you must first reset your password.

Usernames do not exist on Cambridge Core. Your Cambridge Core login will be the email address associated with your account. If you have forgotten your email address, please contact customer services.

How do I change the email address on my account?

To change your email address, log in to your Cambridge Core account and visit the ‘My account settings’ page.

Under ‘personal details’, update the ‘email address’ field and click ‘save’. Your email address will now be updated. Next time you log in to Cambridge Core, you will need to use this new email address.

How can I sign up to alerts from Cambridge Core?

You can sign up to journal table of contents alerts here or sign up to Librarian Alerts.

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Your organisation administrator account

For more details on how to use your organisation account, please see our detailed user guides which cover:

How do I access my account?

Select the blue ‘login’ (if not yet logged in) or ‘My account’ (if logged in) button on the top-right corner of your screen to access your organisation account.

How can I set up an administrator account for my institution or society?

You must first register for a user account on Cambridge Core.

Apply for an organisation account by filling out the account request form that can be found in your account and the services for librarians area.

Your request will then be sent to our customer services team for verification. We will endeavour to get back to you within 72 hours when your account will be ready to use.

How do I set up my EZ Proxy configuration?

In order to set up EZ Proxy access to Cambridge Core, you need to use the domain name: https://cambridge.org/core

OCLC have provided an EZproxy stanza for Cambridge Core here.

How do I configure IP access for my organisation?

You can view the IP addresses associated to your organisation in your organisation account area. In order to add new IP addresses, please contact technical support or your usual sales support contact.

How do I add a remote user to my institution?

To add a remote user please contact technical support.

How do I access usage data from before Cambridge Core launched?

Usage statistics can only be downloaded using the Cambridge Core usage 'date picker' from the launch date 04 September 2016 onwards.

Historic usage from Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books Online can be downloaded in your Cambridge Core account by going to 'Usage statistics' and then scrolling down to the 'Archived usage statistics' section. You can then select from a JR1, JR1A or BR2 report.

The historic usage is available as downloadable excel spreadsheets for each year since 2010.

How do I set up inbound openURLs?

It is possible to set up inbound openURLs to link directly to an article, book, chapter or journal page on Cambridge Core. Find out more about the specifications and see examples of how to use the parameters here.

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Using Cambridge Core

For help with navigating Cambridge Core and accessing content, please see our user guides.

How do I open or download a PDF?

If PDFs of content you have access to, don't open or download automatically when clicked, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer. It can be download here: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

How do I send a PDF to my Kindle?

If you have a Kindle, you can send PDFs of content you have access to, to read on it at a later time.

To send content to your Kindle, first ensure <no-reply@cambridge.org> is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account.

Click the ‘send to Kindle’ button, and enter your Kindle email address.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

You can send up to 10MB of content to your kindle. If you are having problems sending content, please try again selecting fewer items. Alternatively you can download the content as a PDF or send to Dropbox or Google Drive.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

How do I send a PDF to my Google Drive?

To send content items to your Google Drive account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account.

How do I send a PDF to my Dropbox account?

To send content items to your Dropbox account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account.

Can I get an RSS feed from Cambridge Core?

Yes, RSS feeds are available to alert you to the latest publishing in journals and subjects of your choice.

You can activate the journals feeds from the journals listing page, or from your chosen journal homepage, issue page or article page. In each case look for the RSS icon. Simply click the icon to sign up to the feed. On the journals listing page the icons are over on the right hand side, corresponding to each journal in the A-Z list. On journals homepages themselves, the icons appear in the image at the top right of the page, next to the existing email alerts icon.

For RSS alerts by subject, choose your subject on the ‘Browse Subjects‘ page, open the subject page and click the same icon at the top right of the page. The subject RSS feeds will alert you when new content is published in both books and journals in your chosen subject.

What do I do if I see a page of dense text when I click on the RSS icon?

The page you are seeing is the raw metadata for the RSS feed (in XML format), it means that your web browser does not support RSS feeds and you will need to add a feed reader to the browser or sign up to a separate feed reader like Feedly.

There are variations in the way RSS feeds are rendered in different browsers.

For example:

Google Chrome doesn't support RSS feeds but extensions can be added. Please see: https://www.ricksdailytips.com/cant-read-rss-feeds-with-chrome/
Microsoft Edge does not support RSS. There is more information here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_internet-insider_spartan-insiderplat_pc/will-microsoft-edge-browser-support-rss-feeds/778b6dd2-346e-44d3-a1c7-2e9350f4c958

If you have issues viewing RSS feeds, we recommend the following:

There may be a ‘+’ symbol in your RSS feed reader which you can use to add a new feed. Then you can add the URL from the page you see when you click the RSS icon in Cambridge Core.
Check which feed reader you use. For example, with Feedly, you can simply paste the feed URL in Feedly search and subscribe to the feed.
If you want to view an RSS feed in your browser, search for browser add-ons for ‘RSS Feeds’ in the help section

What is Altmetric?

Altmetric is a system that tracks the attention research outputs such as scholarly articles and datasets receive online. Using data from social media outputs, traditional media, blogs and online reference managers, Altmetric creates an attention score influenced by the quantity of posts and the quality of the post’s source and displays the score in a donut.

For more information please visit https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions

Cambridge Core currently provides Altmetric scores for journal articles and books. If an Altmetric score is available it is displayed on the metrics tabs on the individual content pages.

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