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Shadow library

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Shadow librariesareonline databasesof readily available content that is normally obscured or otherwise not readily accessible. Such content may be inaccessible for a number of reasons, including the use ofpaywalls,copyright controls,or other barriers to accessibility placed upon the content by its original owners.[1][2]Shadow libraries usually consist oftextual informationas inelectronic books,but may also include otherdigital media,including software, music, or films.

Examples of shadow libraries includeAnna's Archive,Library Genesis,Sci-HubandZ-Library,which are popular book and academic shadow libraries[1][3]and may be the largest public libraries for books and literature.

Motivation

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See also:Open accessandSerials crisis
Growth ofLibrary Genesis,2009-2022

One of the goals of shadow libraries is to more readily disseminate academic content, especially papers from academic journals.[2]Academic literaturehas become increasingly expensive, as costs to access information created by scholars have risen dramatically in recent years, especially the cost of books.[4]The termserials crisishas emerged to describe this ongoing trend.

There has also been a concerted international movement, known as theOpen Accessmovement, to makeacademic knowledgefreeor very inexpensive.[5]The Open Access movement strives to establish both journals that are free to access (known asopen access journals) and free-to-access repositories of academic journal papers published elsewhere. However, many open access journals require academics to pay fees to be published in an open access journal, which disincentivizes academics from publishing in such journals.[6]

A third reason for the establishment of shadow libraries is the tacit endorsement by many academics of such efforts.[7]Academics are rarely compensated by publishers for their work, regardless of whether their work is published in an open access journal or a conventionally priced journal. Thus, there is now little incentive for academics to disavow shadow libraries. Furthermore, shadow libraries greatly increase the impact of academics whose work is made available. According to one study from Cornell University, articles that are on Sci-Hub receive 1.72 times as manycitationsas articles from journals of similar quality that are not available on Sci-Hub.[8]

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Content hosted by some shadow libraries may be hosted without the consent of the original owners of the material. This may make some shadow librariesillegal;however, as researchers are not required to disclose the means by which they access academic material, it is difficult to monitor the use of illegally accessed academic papers. Not all authors agree with trying to compromise access to shadow libraries.[9]

The legality of directing individuals to shadow libraries is broadly undetermined. There is currently no consensus among legal authorities in the United States and Europe as to what extent advertising shadow libraries constitutes acriminal offense.There are currently no settled cases determining whether it is permissible by academics to directly provide links to shadow libraries, though threats of legal action by academic publishers regarding such references have occurred in isolated incidents. Legal action against researchers remains uncommon.[10]

Although most academics are not penalized for distributing their published works independently and freely (therefore obviating the need for shadow libraries in the first place), there are reports of academic publishers threatening such academics with legal action.[11]

Used resilience technologies

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Shadow libraries (or their content databases) make use ofBitTorrent(mainly for database dumps),dark webandIPFStechnologies to increase their resilience or distribute loads.[12][13][14][2][15]In the case ofAnna's Archive,the software is developed and made accessible asopen source software,enabling code development by any volunteer andmirrorsorforks,with the site claiming that "if we get taken down we'll just pop right up elsewhere, since all our code and data is fully open source".[16][17]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abKaraganis, Joe, ed. (2018).Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education.The MIT Press.doi:10.7551/mitpress/11339.001.0001.ISBN978-0-262-34569-9.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-07-02.Retrieved2020-09-23.
  2. ^abcWoodcock, Claire (November 30, 2022)."'Shadow Libraries' Are Moving Their Pirated Books to The Dark Web After Fed Crackdowns - Academic repositories like LibGen and Z-Library are becoming less accessible on the web, but finding a home on alt-networks like Tor and IPFS ".Vice.Archivedfrom the original on November 30, 2022.RetrievedNovember 30,2022.
  3. ^Van der Sar, Ernesto (November 19, 2022).""Anna's Archive" Opens the Door to Z-Library and Other Pirate Libraries ".TorrentFreak.Archivedfrom the original on November 19, 2022.RetrievedJanuary 3,2023.
  4. ^"Trends in the Price of Academic Titles in the Humanities and Other Fields".American Academy of Arts & Sciences.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-04-20.Retrieved2021-02-15.
  5. ^"Schattenbibliotheken: Piraterie oder Notwendigkeit?".iRights – Kreativität und Urheberrecht in der digitalen Welt(in German).Archivedfrom the original on 2021-07-02.Retrieved2020-09-23.
  6. ^Suber, Peter (2013-10-21)."Open access: six myths to put to rest".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-02-20.Retrieved2021-02-15.
  7. ^"Shadow Libraries – The Piracy Years".Archived fromthe originalon 2021-07-02.Retrieved2021-02-15.
  8. ^Correa, Juan C.; Laverde-Rojas, Henry; Tejada, Julian; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando (January 2022)."The Sci-Hub effect on papers' citations".Scientometrics.127(1): 99–126.doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03806-w.S2CID234003081.Archivedfrom the original on 26 July 2023.Retrieved26 July2023.
  9. ^Rumfitt, Alison (November 25, 2022)."In defence of Z-Library and book piracy - Pirated ebook site Z-Library was the bane of many authors' and publishers' existence, however Alison Rumitt – herself an author – isn't celebrating its loss".Dazed.Archivedfrom the original on November 25, 2022.RetrievedNovember 25,2022.
  10. ^"Legal questions raised over links to Sci-Hub".www.insidehighered.com.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-01-10.Retrieved2021-02-14.
  11. ^"What happened when a professor was accused of sharing his own work on his website".Archivedfrom the original on 2022-05-14.Retrieved2021-02-15.
  12. ^"Meet the Guy Behind the Libgen Torrent Seeding Movement".TorrentFreak.Archivedfrom the original on 13 May 2021.Retrieved23 October2020.
  13. ^"Archivists Want to Make Sci-Hub 'Un-Censorable'".Gizmodo.Archivedfrom the original on 25 December 2022.Retrieved13 June2021.
  14. ^""Anna's Archive" Opens the Door to Z-Library and Other Pirate Libraries ".TorrentFreak.Archivedfrom the original on 19 November 2022.Retrieved8 January2023.
  15. ^"A piece of Web3 tech helps banned books through the Great Firewall's cracks".South China Morning Post.16 April 2022.Archivedfrom the original on 29 November 2022.Retrieved8 January2023.
  16. ^Staff (January 2023)."Anna's Archive - About".Anna's Archive.RetrievedJanuary 3,2022.
  17. ^Staff (January 2023)."Anna's Archive - Software".Anna's Archive.Archivedfrom the original on January 17, 2023.RetrievedJanuary 4,2022.
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