My basic education in computer science consisted of going to the university library starting about 1977 and reading dusty old ACM and IEEE journals. I already k

My basic education in computer science consisted of going to the university library starting about 1977 and reading dusty old ACM and IEEE journals. I already knew how to program, my initial interest was following up an academic reference on run length compression in Dr. Dobbs Journal. In the dark (and cool) Arizona State University library I discovered a wondrous web of scientific and engineering literature related to computing. At some point in the 80's academia took a turn away from accessibility. While the boom in public internet did skew things back towards freely available, there are a multitude of forces attempting to conceal the lamp of knowledge, usually behind a paywall. This subtopic is worthy of independent discussion. This also reminds me to remember Aaron Swartz.