Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education

by Joe Karaganis (Editor), Balázs Bodó (Contributor), Evelin Heidel (Contributor)

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
Bal�zs Bod�, Laura Czerniewicz, Miroslaw Filiciak, Mariana Fossatti, Jorge Gemetto, Eve Gray, Evelin Heidel, Joe Karaganis, Lawrence Liang, Pedro Mizukami, Jhessica Reia, Alek Tarkowski

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published May 4, 2018

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an Academic book written for academics. The subject matter however is greatly interesting. This book deals with scholarly collections of media (books, journal articles, etc.) that have come about through primarily copyright restrictions. These collections, shadow libraries, are built through the process of students and academics trying to get access to information for their work. Copyright restrictions are used by publishers to put great swaths of the academic literature behind paywalls. Even in wealthy countries libraries and universities can not subscribe to all of the subscriptions necessary to access what there academics and students may need for their research. The problem is greater in poorer countries. As a result researchers haves used copy-machines, scanners, and the like to circulate knowledge themselves through a verity of means. This book is a collection of articles by different scholars. It covers the core issues with shadow libraries, and then show they have developed and exist in a verity of countries. The book is by MIT Press and worthy of the name. I think it maybe the only major work on the topic at the moment.

[Lientur Alkaman Kurüfilu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo fundamental y popular (La historia de LibGen) están en los primeros dos capítulos. Pero lo más sobresaliente, desde la perspectiva de un sociólogo, es el capítulo de la India: por su completitud, empiricismo y documentación logran captar capas muy complejas del fenómeno. En general se muestra en el libro una metodología de investigación clara y plantean hechos objetivos claros. Las bibliotecas digitales (incluso las piratas piratas) se originan por una necesidad educativa fundamentada en un derecho, por la necesidad económica derivada de los costos de la educación, y por el amor bibliofílico innato del ser humano

[John Wanga · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a classic, a first on this subject & very unique indeed!!!
The details are just marvelous though it has this "academic tone" to it & that can be quite discouraging. Though, I was very much pleased with the information contained as there was very little information on the internet concerning shadow libraries & what truly happens behind sites like libGen or Gigapedia. Learnt about Russian sites & the major founders or influential figures behind most shadow libraries that exist today.