If you live near a university you will likely be able to use their database access in the library.

If you don't want to go to that trouble, you can also try using google scholar. It will lead to many academic articles. You will not have access to all of them, but many of them are available for free. You will want to be somewhat careful for this because Google Scholar has some questionable results, but it also has many wonderful resources. Use common sense such as looking for .edu addresses and reputable sounding websites.

Check your local public library. Many of them database collections available to any card holder. You may not get as much as a university, but you might still find useful sources.

Jstor now allows individuals to open an account for free, without being a part of an institution. They do limit to how much you use it - I believe it is three saved articles for 2 weeks, which comes to something like 78 articles per year. But it is pretty helpful.

http://about.jstor.org/rr

I'm a huge fan of listserves. H-Net has an amazing list of well-curated e-mail lists. I only really know H-France that well so, I'll tell you what you can expect in terms of content:

• Reviews/roundatable discussions of recently published books

• Houseswap opportunities for research trips

• Open questions to the community, in the style of "Does anyone know why (x) archive doesn't contain internal memos of such-and-such ministry from 1740-175?"

• Calls for papers for conferences and publications

• Publication announcements ("I wrote a book")

• Announcements of upcoming events of interest.

Hope that helps!