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As a former scientist, and researching during the 90s, the publishing system that has arisen where a company can monopolise it, and by that, prevent access, is

As a former scientist, and researching during the 90s, the publishing system that has arisen where a company can monopolise it, and by that, prevent access, is very unfortunate. No scientist wants their work to be unseen and hidden behind a paywall, but that is what has happened. Worse still, in some fields amateurs can make a reasonable contribution to the field (my experience is observation astronomy), and the current system hinders that. So many comments along the lines of I can't find the paper I want without going to SciHub tells you just how broken the current publishing system is.

godelski 8y ago
Researcher at a small company here (eg: SBIR work). I can't even tell you how many hours I've wasted looking for access to papers. Can't exactly use something like Sci Hub at work. But once I do find articles, usually with the help of a local university, I am able to do a lot more work. But combine the normal problem of having to run through many papers and add the inability to see beyond an abstract easily. Open access greatly helps the small researchers. The big guys can already buy access.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  You're probably aware of this already, but to be sure and to help potential other readers, Unpaywall can help you legally find gratis versions of articles: https://unpaywall.org/ https://unpaywall.org/
  - godelski 8y ago
    I haven't actually seen this before. Thanks! Looks like it just does what I do manually. Great idea. Also can you explain more what you do? With Flockademic.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      Yeah, it's a great project :) Flockademic attempts to help researchers promote their work without relying on publishing it in "prestigious" (and often paywalled) journals. I'm hoping to have quality research get its authors known as sources of credible research, rather than its journal. I'm also currently in the process of applying for a grant for some exciting work that aims to solve the same problem in collaboration with preprint servers, but whether that materialises depends on the success of those applications. If you're interested and don't mind the occasional Flockademic spam, you can sign up for updates here: https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic (Or to the RSS feed here: https://medium.com/feed/flockademic https://medium.com/feed/flockademic)

godelski 8y ago

Researcher at a small company here (eg: SBIR work). I can't even tell you how many hours I've wasted looking for access to papers. Can't exactly use something like Sci Hub at work. But once I do find articles, usually with the help of a local university, I am able to do a lot more work. But combine the normal problem of having to run through many papers and add the inability to see beyond an abstract easily. Open access greatly helps the small researchers. The big guys can already buy access.

Vinnl 8y ago
You're probably aware of this already, but to be sure and to help potential other readers, Unpaywall can help you legally find gratis versions of articles: https://unpaywall.org/ https://unpaywall.org/
- godelski 8y ago
  I haven't actually seen this before. Thanks! Looks like it just does what I do manually. Great idea. Also can you explain more what you do? With Flockademic.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    Yeah, it's a great project :) Flockademic attempts to help researchers promote their work without relying on publishing it in "prestigious" (and often paywalled) journals. I'm hoping to have quality research get its authors known as sources of credible research, rather than its journal. I'm also currently in the process of applying for a grant for some exciting work that aims to solve the same problem in collaboration with preprint servers, but whether that materialises depends on the success of those applications. If you're interested and don't mind the occasional Flockademic spam, you can sign up for updates here: https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic (Or to the RSS feed here: https://medium.com/feed/flockademic https://medium.com/feed/flockademic)