From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2017 09:49:21 +0100
I am glad to see that Colin is about still. Hi Colin. I am always
intrigued by comments like this one (not his):
"By looking into how and where Sci-Hub is used it becomes clear that
barriers to access to scholarly publications remain a real issue, one
that is affecting a diverse group of actors in many different ways.
And thanks to a so-far unbroken oligopoly in academic publishing, with
a small set of commercial actors dominating the market and setting the
terms to access, this is unlikely to change very soon. Thus, issues of
legality aside, Sci-Hub remains a strong route to education for
researchers from states suffering from international embargoes or
economic hardship just as it is for individuals outside academic
institutions everywhere else in the world"
It fascinates me that the American Chemical Society, a representative
body if ever there was one, is included in the heavily weighted phrase
"a small group of commercial actors" and it makes me wonder from the
start how rational this analysis is.
What interests me because my perspective is different is the number of
users of SciHub who already have access: if you work by clicking on a
DOI as many do what could be easier to reach full text. Certainly
easier than using the library you have access to.
Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2017 23:48:23 +0000
The latest post from the LSE impact blog is worth looking at,
especially for the graphics and tables in relation to Sci-Hub
downloads from major publishers as these can't easily be copied into
the LibLicense-L list. If you want to explore the data on Sci-Hub
yourself, have a look at his small web application (still in
development), which allows you to browse the data easily.
Best Colin
------------------------------------------------------------
A closer look at the Sci-Hub corpus: what is being downloaded and from where?
Sci-Hub remains among the most common sites via which readers
circumvent article paywalls and access scholarly literature. But where
exactly are its download requests coming from? And just what is being
downloaded? Bastian Greshake has analysed the full Sci-Hub corpus and
its request data, and found that articles are being downloaded from
all over the world, more recently published papers are among the most
requested, and there is a marked overrepresentation of requested
articles from journals publishing on chemistry.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/06/12/a-closer-look-at-the-sci-hub-corpus-what-is-being-downloaded-and-from-where/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feedburner%2FLSEImpactBlog+%28LSE+Impact+Blog%29
By looking into how and where Sci-Hub is used it becomes clear that
barriers to access to scholarly publications remain a real issue, one
that is affecting a diverse group of actors in many different ways.
And thanks to a so-far unbroken oligopoly in academic publishing, with
a small set of commercial actors dominating the market and setting the
terms to access, this is unlikely to change very soon. Thus, issues of
legality aside, Sci-Hub remains a strong route to education for
researchers from states suffering from international embargoes or
economic hardship just as it is for individuals outside academic
institutions everywhere else in the world.
This blog post is based on the author’s article, “Looking into
Pandora’s Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and its Usage”, published in
F1000Research (DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.11366.1).
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position
of the LSE Impact Blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please
review our comments policy if you have any concerns on posting a
comment below.
About the author
Bastian Greshake is a biologist-turned-bioinformatician, currently
working on his PhD in the Group for Applied Bioinformatics at the
University of Frankfurt. Besides his research in fungal genomics he
has a strong interest in open science and all things open. In 2011 he
co-founded openSNP, an award-winning citizen science project that
creates open data by putting personal genetics data into the public
domain. In addition he does research into how people get around the
barriers that prevent them access to research outputs. He tweets at
@gedankenstuecke.
---------------------------------------------
Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
The Australian National University
Room 3.31, Beryl Rawson Building #13
Acton, ACT, 2601
Australia
P: + 61 2 6125 8983
E: [log in to unmask]
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