Paper Search MCP Server

Literature searches in paper-search-mcp can use search_papers to query selected configured platforms, returning deduplicated papers with statistics and errors for each source. Individual search tools cover services including arXiv, PubMed, Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. Controls vary by source: arXiv supports sorting, while Semantic Scholar accepts year filters. bioRxiv and medRxiv queries match categories within the last 30 days, not full-text keywords. Unpaywall instead retrieves open-access metadata using a DOI.

For arXiv, IACR and Zenodo papers, researchers can follow a search with PDF downloading and text extraction. The download_with_fallback workflow attempts the original source, open-access repositories and Unpaywall, with Sci-Hub available as an optional later fallback. Direct PDF downloads and reading are unsupported by the PubMed, CrossRef and dblp connectors, while SSRN provides metadata only. IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library searches need API keys, and their PDF download tools also need institutional access. Researchers working through MCP clients such as Claude Desktop can use the search, download and text-extraction tools according to each source's capabilities.