Last month, just before I finally posted my second blog post (go me) I attended the Open Athens conference 2018. I wasn't bowling over with enthusiasm for the event because conferences are always that great blend of some very interesting and novel information plus lots of bumfy meh and sales pitches. However I went and actually had a good time and networked a bit so all in all a worthwhile and inexpensive event so thank you Open Athens for arranging. If you are interested in the content of the conference you can listen to the plenaries here.
The last plenary was by Torsten Reimer from the British Library, on making 'everything available', e.g. trying to make British Library content more accessible to customers. That part was interesting, but I myself have been fixating on the words from the first 6 minutes of his plenary for the past 2 weeks. Start listing from about 3.40 in the YouTube recording to around 5.54, just over 2 minutes of you life, go on I think its worth it and I can wait.
...
You done? Fab
Now none of that might have been revolutionary to you, but I wasn't aware of the breadth of SciHub - I was only faintly aware of SciHub - so 'close to 100% of the journal content that academics would like to find' was quite a statistical shock to my system. I always imagined it was like Academia.edu and ResearchGate, patchy and prone to take down requests. But no, it is in fact a phenomenon of Napster proportions. And I was quietly a bit happy about that.
"This really can't be in the interest of any stakeholder in this environment, regardless of whether you are a publisher and you're interested in staying in business, or you are a university or a National Library; and in particular I think what also can't be in our interest is if you look at the hashtag... #openscience" A hashtag which is being used by at least one academic to promote illegally rehosted and made available material.
Now clearly as a Librarian who manages access to digital content and fights with my colleagues everyday to get recognition as a valuable service, I should also see this as 'not in my interest'. My job revolves around access management through our discovery system and trying to make this as smooth a journey as possible, but with the best efforts and will in the world it will never be the Google solution everyone says they want. If the much derided and oft spouted by everyone not a Librarian 'well everything's all online now isn't it?' turns out to now be true, illegally or not, then that undermines the entire point of my job doesn't it?
Well... maybe. But I don't see my job as providing access to paid for content to our customers. I see my job as trying to provide easy access to the right content with the minimum effort on the part of our customers. I would push for us to be far more value added in the shape of reading lists and recommended content because i think a lot of people want and need guidance in what to read because otherwise they'll read and cite the first thing they find that validates their point. More access to content might remove some of our function but I don't think it would remove the need for value added library services. There's plenty of content out there on the internet right now, but I can still usually find things others can't or do it in a fraction of the time so i'm not immediately worried for the information profession.
I was quietly a little happy because I want researchers and students and everyone to be able to get access to scholarly research, and despite everyone's hopes and aspirations for Open Access, we know it's far from providing the needed solution. Embargo periods, selective access biasing what people read, discoverability of gold open select articles, APIs, getting academics and everyone else to understand the difference between 'open' and 'freely available' - Open Access is still a very bumpy road, largely because publishers are intent on retaining as much of the pre-digital model as possible. This is in their interest and you can't blame them for it, but as Librarians we should be hoping for better.
References
Greshake, B (2017) Looking into Pandora's Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and its Usage, F1000Research, 6(541). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11366.1
Elmes, J (2017) Sci-Hub study suggests publishers’ embargoes ‘not viable’, Times Higher Education, 11 May 2017. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sci-hub-study-suggests-publishers-embargoes-not-viable
Willinsky, J (2016) Sci-Hub: research piracy and the public good, Times Higher Education, 14 March 2016. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/sci-hub-research-piracy-and-public-good
Noroden, R Van (2013) Open access: The true cost of science publishing, nature, 27 March 2013. Available at: https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676
The last plenary was by Torsten Reimer from the British Library, on making 'everything available', e.g. trying to make British Library content more accessible to customers. That part was interesting, but I myself have been fixating on the words from the first 6 minutes of his plenary for the past 2 weeks. Start listing from about 3.40 in the YouTube recording to around 5.54, just over 2 minutes of you life, go on I think its worth it and I can wait.
...
You done? Fab
Now none of that might have been revolutionary to you, but I wasn't aware of the breadth of SciHub - I was only faintly aware of SciHub - so 'close to 100% of the journal content that academics would like to find' was quite a statistical shock to my system. I always imagined it was like Academia.edu and ResearchGate, patchy and prone to take down requests. But no, it is in fact a phenomenon of Napster proportions. And I was quietly a bit happy about that.
"This really can't be in the interest of any stakeholder in this environment, regardless of whether you are a publisher and you're interested in staying in business, or you are a university or a National Library; and in particular I think what also can't be in our interest is if you look at the hashtag... #openscience" A hashtag which is being used by at least one academic to promote illegally rehosted and made available material.
Now clearly as a Librarian who manages access to digital content and fights with my colleagues everyday to get recognition as a valuable service, I should also see this as 'not in my interest'. My job revolves around access management through our discovery system and trying to make this as smooth a journey as possible, but with the best efforts and will in the world it will never be the Google solution everyone says they want. If the much derided and oft spouted by everyone not a Librarian 'well everything's all online now isn't it?' turns out to now be true, illegally or not, then that undermines the entire point of my job doesn't it?
Well... maybe. But I don't see my job as providing access to paid for content to our customers. I see my job as trying to provide easy access to the right content with the minimum effort on the part of our customers. I would push for us to be far more value added in the shape of reading lists and recommended content because i think a lot of people want and need guidance in what to read because otherwise they'll read and cite the first thing they find that validates their point. More access to content might remove some of our function but I don't think it would remove the need for value added library services. There's plenty of content out there on the internet right now, but I can still usually find things others can't or do it in a fraction of the time so i'm not immediately worried for the information profession.
I was quietly a little happy because I want researchers and students and everyone to be able to get access to scholarly research, and despite everyone's hopes and aspirations for Open Access, we know it's far from providing the needed solution. Embargo periods, selective access biasing what people read, discoverability of gold open select articles, APIs, getting academics and everyone else to understand the difference between 'open' and 'freely available' - Open Access is still a very bumpy road, largely because publishers are intent on retaining as much of the pre-digital model as possible. This is in their interest and you can't blame them for it, but as Librarians we should be hoping for better.
References
Greshake, B (2017) Looking into Pandora's Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and its Usage, F1000Research, 6(541). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11366.1
Elmes, J (2017) Sci-Hub study suggests publishers’ embargoes ‘not viable’, Times Higher Education, 11 May 2017. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sci-hub-study-suggests-publishers-embargoes-not-viable
Willinsky, J (2016) Sci-Hub: research piracy and the public good, Times Higher Education, 14 March 2016. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/sci-hub-research-piracy-and-public-good
Noroden, R Van (2013) Open access: The true cost of science publishing, nature, 27 March 2013. Available at: https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676
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