I also asked the students to write for ten minutes about the difficulties they encounter when performing academic literature searches, and the results – while not surprising – confirm how hard it is for end users to understand why the online academic environment exists in its current form. Content here, content there, duplicated content…it defies logic.

Additional Reading

Himmelstein, D.S., Romero, A.R., McLaughlin, S.R., Greshake Tzovaras, B., Greene, C.S. (2017). Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3100v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3100v2

Houle, L. (2017). Google Scholar, Sci-Hub and LibGen: Could they be our New Partners? Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences. Paper 3. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/iatul/2017/partnership/3

McKenzie, L. (2017). Sci-Hub’s cache of pirated papers is so big, subscription journals are doomed, data analyst suggests. Science News. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/sci-hub-s-cache-pirated-papers-so-big-subscription-journals-are-doomed-data-analyst

Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’ve worked on the outside edge of academia too long, maybe it’s the graffiti of Angela Merkel in a noose I saw on the subway this morning, but something doesn’t feel quite right. I’m sure this is a familiar feeling to many of you.

Post-IFLA, in relation to science communications, I can summarize the feeling as this: there’s a lot of good work going on in many directions, there is a global organization working towards solving big issues (including work on a Global Vision), but there is a key area in which I personally believe academic libraries could (must?) – at the global level – work more closely to improve their support of key, open science infrastructures outside the commercial sphere. Some of us touched upon this during our IFLA conversations and in blog/Twitter conversations over the past few weeks, and it’s really been bothering me of late.

It is crucially important to ensure long-term preservation and broader (open) access to authentic and trusted scientific information, considering efforts such as the German Big Flip and following tenants similar to those outlined by the IFLA Law Libraries section in its 2016 Statement on Government Provision of Public Legal Information in the Digital Age.

Take a moment now to read both the article and the statement, then sit back and imagine a future IFLA Statement on Provision of Public Scientific Information in the Digital Age, backed up by implementation worldwide (difficult, but not impossible).

Crucial to this concept in relation to science in the battle against quasi-scientific information is the following (IFLA Law Libraries Section, 2017) that:

…providers also need to take responsibility for ensuring that the content they post is available to all, at no fee, that the content is authentic and trustworthy, and that it is preserved for public use over time in cooperation with memory institutions.

Yes, this would take effort in developing better global mechanisms for ensuring the content is authentic and trustworthy, but there are existing reputation-based models for this already in existence (ResearchGate, arXiv) – this wouldn’t necessarily involve bureaucratic committees, DRM, and the like. Imagine if academic libraries and scientific professional organizations banded together, globally, to tackle this aspect of the problem, in a non-commercial manner.

It would solve many of our problems, including:

1. No need to worry about P2P servers or educate people about them: To repeat, the biggest problem with P2P servers (legal issues aside), from my perspective, is the potential for fake copies to be placed on servers purposefully in order to mislead other scientists or members of the public.  If authentic and trusted copies are openly available via search engines (and let me get wild and crazy here and even dream about a really robust non-commercial search engine), there is no need for P2P servers.
2. Counteracting quasi-science beyond the journalistic realm: Members of the public would have easy access to official and authentic original research (and data) which might be inaccessible to them at present, unless their public library subscribes to expensive databases or their university provides alumni or walk-in access. Sure, some non-scientists might not be understand everything, but they would at least have the original sources and be encouraged to think for themselves.

Point two is crucially important, and I will talk about that in future posts.

Additional Reading

IFLA Law Libraries Section. IFLA Statement on Government Provision of Public Legal Information in the Digital Age (2016). https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11064?og=86

Vogel, G. & Kupferschmidt, K. (25 Aug. 2017). Germany seeks big flip in publishing. Science. 357(6353). 744-745. DOI: 10.1126/science.357.6353.744

Therefore, after relating yesterday’s two small events, I will provide one more analysis of this topic, because recent events do – whatever the future holds – involve all of us, because they reveal problematic aspects of the infrastructure hidden below the surface of all science communications.

First occurrence yesterday: I was trying – really trying – to explain a particular library infrastructure to a research colleague. In describing this infrastructure, my colleague’s eyes began to glaze over, so I stopped my attempt midsentence and fell silent. After a moment, my colleague said thoughtfully: “You know, I still really like [P2P server X]. But there are some books that aren’t there. When I check the library, they are never available [for local idiosyncratic reasons not directly relevant to this post]. You know what would really be helpful? Having those books.”

Second occurrence: My mom told me she reads the post and does understand it, though not all the technical phrases.

Therefore, I will try to provide an analogy of recent events here that might make sense to anyone, using Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (you see, my mom loves mysteries and will relate).

Deep in Italy, in the year 1327, curious events take place at an abbey. An abbey which has a mysterious library, the Labyrinthus Aedificium:

This library, storing knowledge from across the ages and from all corners of the world, has come under the rule of Jorge from Burgos, who has closed the library to the public (to put it in modern terms) and is particularly concerned about access to Aristotle’s Poetics, Book II, on Comedy. A representative of those who believe in logic, Brother William of Baskerville, investigates this “gated library” situation, in which Jorge is willing to murder anyone trying to gain access to the legendary Aristotelian book and its (in his eyes) inflammatory content.

In the end, the Labyrinthus Aedificium is burned to a crisp, but other libraries remain – although no one knows if there are additional Poetics, Book II copies. With or without Comedy, humankind’s legacy of scientific knowledge remains intact because of a redundant system (i.e., multiple copies of physical manuscripts) held beyond the grasp of any particular Jorge(s) of the day.

In today’s world, increasing amounts of scientific knowledge are stored exclusively in electronic format. One could consider these networks to be a kind of virtual Labyrinthus Aedificium; the data, its manuscripts.

Who controls these networks, controls access to their content.

Less diversity in ownership of these networks increases the likelihood of a modern day Jorge shutting off access to things he (or she) simply doesn’t like.

While today’s academic IT and library infrastructures are still quite redundant, the acquisition of infrastructure tools and content by fewer players (let’s forget the commercial or non-commercial aspects for a moment) worries those of us who believe in redundancy and in academic libraries as being neutral protectors of humankind’s scientific legacy.

Looking in the mirror this week, we librarians were asking ourselves: have we been doing enough to protect the past, present, and future infrastructure(s) for scientific communications? This is a very big question.

Additional Reading

Eco, Umberto. (1983). The Name of the Rose.

1. Informed library user working in Central European Time (CET) does a Google Scholar search with library links enabled.
2. User follows the SFX links to get the official full-text.
3. Two databases have the full-text; user clicks each link, to major databases.
4. The first database link is broken, the second database is being updated (the time: around 6AM Eastern Standard Time…noon CET, peak working time for the user).
5. User tries to go directly through the second database to compensate for the broken link. That database is also being updated.
6. User gives up the official search path and goes to Sci-Hub. Full-text retrieved within seconds.