Academic Paper Search

Academic Paper Search MCP Server

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A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables searching and retrieving academic paper information from multiple sources.

The server provides LLMs with:

Real-time academic paper search functionality

Access to paper metadata and abstracts

Ability to retrieve full-text content when available

Structured data responses following the MCP specification

While primarily designed for integration with Anthropic's Claude Desktop client, the MCP specification allows for potential compatibility with other AI models and clients that support tool/function calling capabilities (e.g. OpenAI's API).

Note: This software is under active development. Features and functionality are subject to change.

Features

This server exposes the following tools:

search_papers: Search for academic papers across multiple sources

fetch_paper_details: Retrieve detailed information for a specific paper

search_by_topic: Search for papers by topic with optional date range filter

Setup

Installing via Smithery

To install Academic Paper Search Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

**note** this method is largely untested, as their server seems to be having trouble. you can follow the standalone instructions until smithery gets fixed.

Installing via uv (manual install):

Install dependencies:

Set up required API keys in your environment or .env file:

Run the server:

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add the server to your Claude Desktop configuration (claude_desktop_config.json):

Restart Claude Desktop

Development

This server is built using:

Python MCP SDK

FastMCP for simplified server implementation

httpx for API requests

API Sources

Semantic Scholar API

Crossref API

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). This license ensures that:

You can freely use, modify, and distribute this software

Any modifications must be open-sourced under the same license

Anyone providing network services using this software must make the source code available

Commercial use is allowed, but the software and any derivatives must remain free and open source

See the LICENSE file for the full license text.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

Fork the repository

Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)

Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')

Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)

Open a Pull Request

Please note:

Follow the existing code style and conventions

Add tests for any new functionality

Update documentation as needed

Ensure your changes respect the AGPL-3.0 license terms

By contributing to this project, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the AGPL-3.0 license.