From: adam hodgkin <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2018 15:56:49 +0100
I am sure that I will be shouted at for being an apologist for
Sci-Hub, and probably much worse. But please note, before you shout,
that I do not approve of Sci-Hub's mode of operation or the
justifications that Elabkyan offers.
But. But ... It seems to me that Sci-Hub has one great advantage which
puts all the main scholarly/scientific article platforms in a bad
place. It has a simple user interface, a straightforward database, and
(an arguably over-simple) re-use policy which is hugely attractive to
users. So it is very hard to see how the mainstream subscription
platforms, quirkily designed, and by ownership divided, can answer
that. The simplicity arises because almost everything (I exaggerate,
but a great deal of the most relevant stuff) is accessible and
searchable in one place. And the re-use restrictions are almost
completely liberal -- because the restrictions are almost
non-existent.
If the web had evolved in such a way that different bundles of the web
were only searchable from different domains: if Indian content, that
is content from Indian domains, had to be searched by an Indian search
engine, European content by a European search engine, Chinese by a
Chinese search engine and American content by Alta Vista or Inktomi,
etc, imagine with what relief all users would land upon a newly
invented Google that allowed us to search and then navigate to all web
content from all continents and domains from one place.
This point may not direct us towards a next step for scientific and
scholarly publishing, but it may underline the fact that the
traditional vehicles for publishing, deploying, searching and
archiving scholarly content are not operating at web-scale. For all
its defects disengenuity and deficiencies, Sci-Hub is.
If the traditional publishers cannot find a solution to this problem
perhaps Gates Foundation, CZI and Alphabet will?
Adam Hodgkin
www.exacteditions.com
and my book Following Searle on Twitter
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo25370730.html
On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 2:54 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Hinchliffe, Lisa W" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 01:28:20 +0000
>
> The Verge is the tech/media outlet of Vox Media. I am personally more
> familiar with and fan of their Eater (food/restaurants) outlet but
> that's a more personal interest than profesional. :)
>
> See https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vox-media for their funding....
>
> Lisa
>
> --
> Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
> Professor/ Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction
> University Library, University of Illinois, 1408 West Gregory Drive,
> Urbana, Illinois 61801
> [log in to unmask], 217-333-1323 (v), 217-244-4358 (f)
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