In every negotiation, publishers are mindful that their ability to control access to their publications is compromised by unauthorized access from such sites as Sci-Hub and ResearchGate. Open access refers to the free and open availability of scholarly content on the Internet. Open-access materials are made available via digital repositories or scholarly journals. Open access does not mean that anyone can publish anything. It refers to the ability of anyone to view, download and use scholarly information. This interesting topic came to us from The Scholarly Kitchen in their article, “Libraries Face a Future of Open Access.”
However, librarians have learned to confidently demand terms that no publisher can or will accept. Does this mean librarians knowingly and actively seek the support of copyright infringers? Or maybe they are going about their business as normal? Academic libraries aren’t typically centers of corruption. However, whenever anyone suggests that libraries might cancel their paid subscriptions to journals whose content is freely available online, they are immediately disputed by open access advocates.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
