Reviews & Comments of Lean Library chrome extension

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!

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.

If it worked it would be amazing... but it doesn't. Don't waste your time nor storage space on this extention

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.

On OSX, randomly causes the whole Chrome window to become a blank screen every hour or so -- impossible to work with it turned on.

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.

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.

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!!

Really useful for accessing my uni library resources when working from home. Super convenient.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

breaks all the time

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.

I find the extension very useful and it makes my research journey much smoother than before. Would recommend it.

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.

Slows down Google Chrome (Version 88.0.4324.104 (Official Build) (64-bit)) enormously. Cannot recommend.

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.

Something broken in update - tries to take over google search so that it is unable.

Very handy when i'm on websites that are not traditionally supported by my university, but somehow are anyway.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Works remarkably well! I always get instant access to my university hospital's library via this extension. Works as intended.

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

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.

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.

At the minimum it needs a blacklist for websites, the popup is showing even on pages like Wikipedia. However, a way better option would be to be able to disable the popup, and show the extension as "access available" in another color when the popup would normally show. The website actually describes this feature, but says the institution has control over this? Why? Just let me supress the popups please!

Needs a "ignore this site" feature. I have my own subscription to WSJ and this addon prevents me from logging in.

Convenient when you need it but a huge pain when you don't. This extension makes accessing academic papers etc. easy, but if there if you have your own subscription to said material, this extension will almost always override your account causing HUGE headaches. E.g. I have a personal subscription to The Economist I cannot access without uninstalling this silly extension.

Unfortunately having the extension active used 70% of my CPU, making my fan shriek, my laptop overheat, and eventually chrome would stop responding. Disabled the extension and voila-- fan stopped and chrome went back to normal. Unfortunate because its a good idea for an extension and its a very useful too when it works (especially as a thesis-writing master's student). Too bad it uses all your CPU.

Slows down every request to every website substantially. I *always* see "waiting for extension Library Access" at the bottom when I open a new link.