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Sci-hub is sometimes the last resort to obtain a resource that is otherwise unobtainable. But what has become of the old way of obtaining unaccessible papers: A
by periheli0n 5y ago
Sci-hub is sometimes the last resort to obtain a resource that is otherwise unobtainable. But what has become of the old way of obtaining unaccessible papers: Ask the authors for a copy?
Sites like ResearchGate make this very easy. And often a simple email does the job, too.
Advantages:
* It is legal
* The author gets feedback that someone out there reads their research
* Making direct contact to your peers is a good thing.
- abcc8 5y agoIt's too time consuming and has an undefined likelihood of success. People will naturally flock to alternative methods, such as sci-hub, that are faster and until recently were near guaranteed to have the desired content.
- periheli0n 5y agoAgreed, sci-hub is so much more convenient. But when the publishers finally shut it down for good, we'll have to find another solution. A community of scientists sharing their papers would be a good thing already now. I personally know active scientists who don't even try anymore to look up the paper, but rather go directly to sci-hub for any doi they need. I can understand why, but I also think that this doesn't lead to a sustainable publishing culture.
- nottorp 5y ago> It is legal Are you sure that the usual suspects don't make authors assign copyright or at least distribution rights? I wouldn't put it past them...
- periheli0n 5y agoI have signed quite a few of those copyright transfer forms, and there are always a clause that would allow sharing on a personal basis.
- yellowcake0 5y agoExcept a researcher could easily need to skim 30+ papers in a day, this is not a solution.
- periheli0n 5y agoAgreed, in that case that wouldn't work. But honestly, how often does one have to skim that many papers in a day, to a level where the freely available abstract is not sufficient? Perhaps every once in a while when one compiles a survey of a new field they enter. Once the project is set on the rails, one rarely has to read that much.
- yellowcake0 5y ago> how often does one have to skim that many papers in a day, to a level where the freely available abstract is not sufficient? More often than you might think. To take an example from my own work, I was doing assay design a while back, and needed to collect all existing primer sets in the literature. I probably went through a hundred papers over a several day period.