Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education (International Development Research Centre)

Description

How students get the materials they need as opportunities for higher education expand but funding shrinks. From the top down, Shadow Libraries explores the institutions that shape the provision of educational materials, from the formal sector of universities and publishers to the broadly informal ones organized by faculty, copy shops, student unions, and students themselves. It looks at the history of policy battles over access to education in the post–World War II era and at the narrower versions that have played out in relation to research and textbooks, from library policies to book subsidies to, more recently, the several “open” publication models that have emerged in the higher education sector. From the bottom up, Shadow Libraries explores how, simply, students get the materials they need. It maps the ubiquitous practice of photocopying and what are—in many cases—the more marginal ones of buying books, visiting libraries, and downloading from unauthorized sources. It looks at the informal networks that emerge in many contexts to share materials, from face-to-face student networks to Facebook groups, and at the processes that lead to the consolidation of some of those efforts into more organized archives that circulate offline and sometimes online— the shadow libraries of the title. If Alexandra Elbakyan's Sci-Hub is the largest of these efforts to date, the more characteristic part of her story is the prologue: the personal struggle to participate in global scientific and educational communities, and the recourse to a wide array of ad hoc strategies and networks when formal, authorized means are lacking. If Elbakyan's story has struck a chord, it is in part because it brings this contradiction in the academic project into sharp relief—universalist in principle and unequal in practice. Shadow Libraries is a study of that tension in the digital era. Contributors Balázs Bodó, Laura Czerniewicz, Miroslaw Filiciak, Mariana Fossatti, Jorge Gemetto, Eve Gray, Evelin Heidel, Joe Karaganis, Lawrence Liang, Pedro Mizukami, Jhessica Reia, Alek Tarkowski Contents 1 Introduction: Access from Above, Access from Below Piracy The Common Thread The Higher Education Boom and State Retreat Access from Below Conflict Universities Change Policy The Country Studies Notes References 2 The Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library (Pirate) Libraries on the Internet Library Genesis The Communist Ideal of the Reading Nation Censorship The Soviet and Post-Soviet Literary and Scientific Underground The Emergence of Do-It-Yourself Digital Libraries in RuNet Maxim Moshkov and lib.ru Toward a Million-Book Scientific Library Copyright and “Copynorms” in Russian Pirate Librarianship The Co-development of Copynorms and Copyright Laws in the Post-Soviet Era Formalization of the IP Regime in the 2000s Closure of the Legal Regime Notes References 3 Library Genesis in Numbers: Mapping the Underground Flow of Knowledge The Supply of Documents in Library Genesis Preexisting Collections Linguistic and Thematic Expansion of Library Genesis Publishers The Age of Works in Library Genesis The Legal Supply of Works in Library Genesis The Demand Side Demand by Country Country-Level Knowledge Diets Conclusion Notes References 4 Argentina: A Student-Made Ecosystem in an Era of State Retreat Eudeba: The University Press as Democratizer of Knowledge From Public to Private: El Centro Editor de América Latina How Students Survived Changes in the Ecosystem The Losing Battle against Copying Toward Online Digital Libraries BiblioFyL Notice and Takedown Reintermediation Notes References 5 Access to Learning Resources in Post-apartheid South Africa Eve Gray and Laura Czerniewicz Higher Education under Apartheid Student Resistance and the Publishing Underground The Anti-apartheid Academic Boycott and the Rise of a Copying Culture Post-apartheid Higher Education Policy The Right of Access to a Locally Relevant Education: Aspirations and Realities National Education Policy—A Divided Agenda Completion Rates The Academic Publishing Sector in a Period of Change Post-apartheid Market Consolidation The Demise of the Radical Publishers The Rise of the International Mega-textbook Supply Chain Problems Cross-national Pricing: Territorial Markets and Parallel Importation Prohibition International Student Editions The Impact of Kirtsaeng v. Wiley South-South Trade in Textbooks: South Africa and India Price and Affordability of International Textbooks Growth in Local South African Textbook Publishing Scholarly Publishing and University Presses Copyright Meets the Right to Education The Copyright Act Enforcement Exceptions and Limitations Collective Licensing Student Loans and Stipends Student Practices Buying Books Student Sharing Networks Photocopying Digital Materials The Modular, Flexible Future Open Educational Resources (OER) e-Textbooks Toward a Digitally Mediated Ecosystem Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes References 6 Poland: Where the State Ends, the Hamster Begins Miroslaw Filiciak and Alek Tarkowski The Higher Education System in Poland after 1989 Language and Publishing Libraries and Databases Open Access and Educational Exceptions to Copyright Law Student Practices Field Differences between Law and Communications Libraries and Databases Content Sharing by Course Instructors and Students Conclusion Notes References 7 India: The Knowledge Thief Academic Libraries Real and Imagined Access to Databases in University Libraries The Universal Library From Alexandria to Shadow Libraries Ekalavya The Social and Political Life of Books The Unfulfilled Public Library Publishing Politics Nationalization of the Textbook Market Books for Wheat Higher Education Publishing Book Piracy How Students Get What They Need Digital Access Enforcement and the Delhi University Photocopy Case The Decision Toward a Better Legal Framework for Access to Educational Materials The Right to Education The Library Exception Open Access Notes References 8 Brazil: The Copy Shop and the Cloud Universities, Publishers, and the Battle over Copying The Internet as Source Student Practices Conclusion: Taking Access for Granted Notes References 9 Coda: Uruguay Notes References Contributors Index