Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia.

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  • Author(s): Bodó B;Bodó B; Antal D; Antal D; Puha Z; Puha Z
  • Source:
    PloS one [PLoS One] 2020 Dec 03; Vol. 15 (12), pp. e0242509. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Dec 03 (Print Publication: 2020).
  • Publication Type:
    Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science
    • Subject Terms:
      Access to Information* ; Books* ; Empirical Research* ; Internationality* ; Knowledge* ; Libraries* ; Scholarly Communication*; Europe ; Gross Domestic Product ; Models, Theoretical ; Statistics as Topic
    • Abstract:
      Library Genesis is one of the oldest and largest illegal scholarly book collections online. Without the authorization of copyright holders, this shadow library hosts and makes more than 2 million scholarly publications, monographs, and textbooks available. This paper analyzes a set of weblogs of one of the Library Genesis mirrors, provided to us by one of the service's administrators. We reconstruct the social and economic factors that drive the global and European demand for illicit scholarly literature. In particular, we test if lower income regions can compensate for the shortcomings in legal access infrastructures by more intensive use of illicit open resources. We found that while richer regions are the most intensive users of shadow libraries, poorer regions face structural limitations that prevent them from fully capitalizing on freely accessible knowledge. We discuss these findings in the wider context of open access publishing, and point out that open access knowledge, if not met with proper knowledge absorption infrastructures, has limited usefulness in addressing knowledge access and production inequalities.
      Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20201203 Date Completed: 20210112 Latest Revision: 20210112
    • Publication Date:
      20240104
    • Accession Number:
      PMC7714232
    • Accession Number:
      10.1371/journal.pone.0242509
    • Accession Number:
      33270680