Postscript on Sci-Hub: The University Press Edition | The Scholarly Kitchen

" ... The Chronicle of Higher Education, however, has opened a new vein: the question of the role Sci-Hub plays beyond STM articles. What of literature outside STM, and what of the world of university press monographs? What is Sci-Hub’s role there and how should we think about it? You can find the Chronicle piece here behind a paywall. I offer the full title and author’s name (“Online Piracy of Academic Materials Extends to Scholarly Books” by Goldie Blumenstyk) for those curious to see if this article as well can be found on Sci-Hub. I haven’t looked. The Chronicle piece is thinly researched (it would have benefited from a reading of David Smith’s piece cited above), but the author did talk to a number of prominent members of the university press community. One name that jumped out at me is that of Dean Smith, director of Cornell University Press. I worked on a project for the Cornell provost’s office concerning the press a few years ago. This is a highly distinguished publisher; take a look. The Cornell faculty loves this operation, and they should. But let’s look at the respect Sci-Hub accords this enterprise and others: The Cornell press publishes about 100 new books a year. Nearly 500 of its titles were listed on the Library Genesis site as of Monday. The site also listed more than 800 books from the Johns Hopkins University Press, nearly 2,000 from Harvard University Press, and more than 4,800 from MIT Press. The list goes on, which raises several points. The first is that the 'Sci' of Sci-Hub is misleading, as about 80% of all university press (UP) monographs are in the humanities and social sciences. But the more important point is that the argument that Sci-Hub and its brethren are striking out against avaricious commercial publishers simply doesn’t hold up when not-for-profit organizations like university presses, most of which are subsidized by their parent institutions, are part of the mix ..."