Stephen E. Arnold: Pirate Libraries Challenge Elsevier and Thomson Reuters to Liberate Knowledge for Destitute Scholars

Avast: Pirate Libraries They are called “pirate libraries,” but one would be better-served envisioning Robin Hood than Blackbeard.  Atlas Obscura takes a look at these floaters of scientific-journal copyrights in, “The Rise of Pirate Libraries.” These are not physical libraries, but virtual ones, where researchers and other curious folks can study articles otherwise accessible only …

Yoda: Death to Elsevier & Thomson Reuters — Academic Information Breaks Free…

Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone In rich and poor countries, researchers turn to the Sci-Hub website. John Bohannon, Science, 28 April 2016 To read a 2011 paper in Applied Mathematics and Computation, Rahimi would have to pay the publisher, Elsevier, $28. A 2015 paper in Operations Research, published by the U.S.-based company INFORMS, would cost …

Yoda: Death of Elsevier & Thomson Reuters…

This student put 50 million stolen research articles online. And they’re free. Alexandra Elbakyan is a highbrow pirate in hiding. The 27-year-old graduate student from Kazakhstan is operating a searchable online database of nearly 50 million stolen scholarly journal articles, shattering the $10 billion-per-year paywall of academic publishers. . . . . . “While we …

Berto Jongman: Pirate Science — Are Elsevier & Thomson Reuters Joining Bloomberg in the Tarpit?

Russian Researcher Illegally Shares Millions of Science Papers Free Online Welcome to the Pirate Bay of science A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles – almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published – freely available online. And she’s now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit …

Yoda: Open Source Textbooks (and Videos) Inevitable — Publishers, Elsevier, Thomson Reuters Oblivious…

Open-Source Textbooks Gain in Push for College Affordability ABC News (Michael Melia of Associated Press) The standard textbook for Fundamentals of General Chemistry I at the University of Connecticut has a list price of $303. For students who use the version professor Edward Neth is preparing for the fall semester, the cost will be zero. …

Stephen E. Arnold: Elsevier Suffers Another Blow – Dutch Universities Start Full Boycott

Viva The Academic Publisher Boycott! Elsevier is one of the largest and most well-known scientific journal database, but it is also the most notorious for its expensive subscription fee and universities are getting tired of it.  Univers reports that “Dutch Universities Start Their Elsevier Boycott.”  The Netherlands, led by state secretary Sander Dekker, want all …