3 ms·

Sci-hub. You use sci-hub. That's what I've been doing for years; I'm not affiliated with an institution so I can't afford subscriptions, and I need the articles

• exergy 8y ago
  That's exactly the thing though. My field is niche enough, and it's applied science anyway, meaning that even the seminal papers are missing from scihub, let alone more modern and less-cited research papers. And no way for me to upload my stash.
  • betterunix2 8y ago
    Let's say your school's subscription ended. Would you throw your hands in the air and give up, or would you and others in your field work out a way to get the papers you need? Maybe you would just email each other asking for papers at first (at least in my field it is not uncommon for papers to be passed around by email despite the ease with which papers are accessed), and eventually someone with the time would just create some kind of unauthorized archive for your niche field (which new grad students would learn about from more senior grad students). There are plenty of other ways it might play out, but I doubt your ability to publish research would be seriously impacted by a lack of subscriptions to journals.
    • exergy 8y ago
      The question isn't so much whether life will move on. I agree with you that it will. The point is that it will be a top 5 problem. All the stuff that you say will almost undoubtedly be a massive impediment in the face of the kind of "I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but I'll know it when I see it" types of research that PhD often involves.