Sci-Hub use among Spanish researchers: Enemy or a learning opportunity for libraries?

Abstract

Access to scientific literature is the cornerstone of scientific knowledge and numerous scientific-technical and social advances. However, in 2018, major difficulties in accessing the scientific literature have been reported. Despite Open Access has made more than 50% of scientific literature accessible without paywalls, during this year’s access to pirate scientific resources, such as Sci-Hub, has increased. It is one of the most popular resources among researchers and university students. The key aspect is to differentiate between these kinds of resources (black open access or shadow library) and the Open Access movement. Black open access violates copyright regulations, and Open Access wants to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. We conducted a questionnaire with 17 items about the use of Sci-Hub among Spanish-speaking sciences and social sciences researchers. Libraries must learn from these kinds of resources how to improve the access to their scientific resources, and propose to the editors a different way of business, more similar to Spotify or Netflix than the journal bundles offered nowadays, usually with numerous journals with an embargo period or no relevance to the scientific community.