From 19th-22nd April this year, it will be my privilege to participate in OSI2016, the first annual meeting of the Open Scholarship Initiative.

Unter Federführung der Max Planck Digital Library ist kürzlich eine internationale Initiative Open Access 2020 (OA2020) entstanden, die in einer Expression of Interest eine schnellere Transformation des wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesens hin zu Open Access fordert. Unter den aktuell 37 Unterzeichnern sind viele namhafte Wissenschaftseinrichtungen, aus Deutschland bspw.

Führende Wissenschaftsorganisationen haben heute die Initiative “Open Ac­cess 2020” gestartet. Im Fokus steht die großflächige Umstellung der wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften vom Subskriptionssystem hin zu Open Access. Ziel ist es, ein Großteil der wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften in den kommenden Jahren auf Open Access umzustellen.

The European Commission is putting together a Commission Expert Group to provide advice about the development and implementation of open science policy in Europe. It will be known as the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP). This is potentially excellent news. The OSPP’s primary goal is to “advise the Commission on how to further develop and practically implement open science policy”. But there’s potentially a downside here.

This post shouldn’t need to be written, but apparently it does. In recent discussions of Sci-Hub, I still keep seeing people trot out idiot analogies where copying scientific papers is portrayed as the equivalent of stealing physical goods. A couple of examples: Or: It pains me to read the words of experienced and presumably knowledgeable people when they trot out such absolute nonsense.

Yesterday we asked what will happen if Sci-Hub succeeds (by which I meant that it survives whatever legal challenges come its way, and continues to distribute copyrighted scholarly publications to anyone in the world at zero cost, ignoring the claims of that copyright). Now let’s think about what happens if it fails — that is, if it’s taken down by legal action within Russia, or it’s successfully DDoSed (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it

Let’s think this through. Ignore for now the questions about Sci-Hub’s legality, and just consider the pragmatics. Imagine that it “succeeds” in that it survives whatever legal challenges come its way, and continues to distribute copyrighted scholarly publications to anyone in the world at zero cost, ignoring the claims of that copyright. Then what follows?

THE STORY SO FAR: Erin McKiernan can’t get access to the research she needs in Mexico, Mohammad M.M.H can’t get it in Jordan, and Nora Turoman can’t get it in Serbia.

Whatever else Sci-Hub may or may not be, it’s becoming apparent that it functions as a litmus test. It focuses people’s thoughts on the problems of scholarly communication, and draws out their ideas in their clearest form. Who is sympathetic? For example, on one side, you have Duke librarian Kevin Smith, whose radical thoughts about Sci-Hub are radical in the literal sense of the word: going to the root.

Three years ago, representatives of libraries, publishers and scholars all agreed that academic publishers don’t really add any value to scholarly articles. Last week, I interpreted Sci-Hub potentially being a consequence of scholars having become tired after 20 years of trying to wrestle their literature from the publishers’ stranglehold by small baby-steps and through negotiations and campaigning alone.