Academic Papers Search
When To Use
- Finding academic papers, citations, or formal research
- Building literature reviews or citation chains
When NOT To Use
- Community opinions (use
/tome:discourse) - Code implementations (use
/tome:code-search)
Search arXiv, Semantic Scholar, and open-access sources.
Sources (Priority Order)
- arXiv API (free, unlimited metadata)
- Semantic Scholar API (100 req/5min, citation graphs)
- Unpaywall (legal free version discovery)
- CORE.ac.uk (open-access aggregator)
- PubMed Central (biomedical)
- Author preprint pages (WebSearch fallback)
PDF Processing
After acquiring a paper URL or local file path, convert the PDF to markdown for better extraction quality.
Conversion (prefer markitdown)
Apply the leyline:document-conversion protocol:
- Try markitdown first: call the MCP
convert_to_markdown
tool with the PDF URL or file:// path. This produces structured markdown preserving tables, equations, figures, and section hierarchy.
- Fall back to Read tool if markitdown is unavailable:
- Read with
pages: "1-20"for the first chunk - Continue with
pages: "21-40"for longer papers - Continue in 20-page increments as needed
- Note: tables and figures will not extract as cleanly
Extraction Targets
From the converted markdown, extract:
- Abstract and key findings
- Methodology and experimental setup
- Results tables and figures
- Citation information (authors, year, venue)
- Key equations or formal definitions
Fallback Guidance
When a paper is paywalled and no open version exists:
- Public library JSTOR/ProQuest access via library card
- DeepDyve article rental
- Inter-library loan request
- Direct author email template