Re: Academic journal file-sharing (Chronicle of Higher Education)

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

A librarian (from Yale, as I recall) named Daniel Chudnov 
proposed something along these lines back in 2000 under the name 
"Docster": http://www.oss4lib.org/readings/docster.php

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>Chronicle of Higher Education
>October 30, 2009, 02:37 PM ET
>The Latest File-Sharing Piracy: Academic Journals
>By Ben Terris
>
>Illicit file sharing isn't just for kids these days. Once mainly
>used for downloading pirated music, sites have sprung up on the
>Internet that allow free swapping of academic journals (think
>Napster's younger dweeby brother).
>
>A new study, published in the Internet Journal of Medical
>Informatics, looks at a site aimed specifically at medical
>professionals and students and finds that thousands of people
>were obtaining non-open-access materials free of charge. The
>article says that in a six-month period of watching the unnamed
>site, nearly 5,500 articles were exchanged, costing journals
>about $700,000 in that time, or about $1.4-million a year.
>
>The site had 127,626 registered users, who during the study
>period put in requests for 6,587 journals. There was an 83
>percent success rate in finding the article. Nature and Science
>were the most commonly swapped journals.
>
>The article does not focus on the ethical implications but does
>say, "In the field of medicine, ethics plays a pivotal role, and
>yet the site displays activities by medical students, teachers,
>and practicing professionals that are ethically dubious.
>
>Wired Campus reported earlier this week about another attempt to
>give more access to subscription journal articles. This effort,
>called Deep Dyve, is a legal rental program that allows users to
>access articles for a set amount of time with a fee.
>
>Copyright 2009 The Chronicle of Higher Education