January 2021 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

Why the academic community support Sci hub?
by Gangadhar KC 08 Jan '21

08 Jan '21

Dear Library professionals, It is high time to discuss copyright policies, itsinfringement and why the academic community support open access initiatives includingSci hub. The debate is more relevant at present than ever as you all know aboutthe lawsuitfiled recently in the Delhi High Court by the major publishers against Sci-hub andLibGen for copyright infringement. The journal subscription model is pretty old and isaccepted by the academic community for centuries, but unfortunately somepublishing giants have become too greedy. On the other hand, everyone wants free access toscholarly information, but of course, not by violating copyright laws. Perhaps,we have to think of changing the copyright laws! In the race for free access toresearch information, we are destroying the quality and standard of scientificresearch and scholarship which is evident from copyright infringements, theproliferation of predatory journals with low-quality research papers, and OAjournals charging hefty Article Processing Charge (APC), etc. Ultimately, it isthe knowledge creators’ (authors) responsibility and not the librarians, whohave to ‘bell the cat’ or tame the big publishers to bring down journalsubscription prices. Plea of the commercial publishers Threeacademic publishers namely-Elsevier Ltd., Wiley India Pvt. Ltd., AmericanChemical Society filed a petition in Delhi High Court are asking for blockingof Sci-Hub and Libgen, the two websites who provide free downloads of researchpublications and books to research scholars and students. Thetrio publishers together publish 40% of scientific publications. If we take thefive top major publishers, they control more than 50% of thepublications in Science and Social Sciences worldwide, one of the largestconcentrations of market power in any sector. Profits and market caps for thepublishers have also swelled. Journal publishing is a $10 billion industry,with one of the highest profit margins of any sector. Forexample, Elsevier’s parent company RELX Group, boasts a nearly $35billion market cap. The profit margin of Elsevier is 37%, twice that ofGoogle, which dwarfs, by comparison, the margins of tech titans suchas Apple and Amazon also and is under attack globally for itsmonopoly practices and super-profits. The price of these journals has gone up 521% i.e. more than five timesin the last 30 years against consumer price index rise of only 118%. That meansthe price of these publications have become six times while the rest of thegoods is only twice of what they were 30 years back. This is the super-profits,unideal what we are supposed to pay for what is produced by us only. It isimportant to note the fact that commercial publishers are not paying a singlepi for the authors towards content. There is no practice of benevolence in terms ofcash to the authors nor any expenditure involved in review of paper. So, how far they are entitled forcopyright? Also if the employers claim copyright of the Patent, why don’t thesame logic apply in case of articles especially for scientific articles where aresearcher use the infra structure of the institution for his research. The publishers push the libraries to buy bundledsubscriptions of all their products, charge money for any article that maybe required by a researcher anywhere in the world, charging them from $30 to$60 per article. Hence, the premier publisher Elsevierrocked with 982 million dollars. In anutshell, the publishing giants are demanding that Sci-Hub and Libgen becompletely blocked in India through a so-called dynamic injunction. Thepublishers claim that they own exclusive rights to the manuscripts that theyhave published, and that Sci-Hub and Libgen are engaged in violating variousexclusive rights conferred on them under copyright law by providing free accessto their copyrighted contents. Discussion a. Puzzle The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientificsociety started in 1876 founded at New York University. Generally, non-profit organization would have been able to shoulder theresponsibility of free access to research but joined with Elsevier and Wiley infiling a suit against Sci hub. b. ‘Copyright infringement’ Let’slook at the landmark judgement given by the Delhi High Court in 2016 on the Delhi University photocopying case. Threepublishing giants – Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press andthe Taylor and Francis Group – had at the time banded together to sue DelhiUniversity and a photocopying shop operating under its license. Academicfraternity use research articles only for academic purpose and not for anyprofit. The court had ruled that compilation anddistribution of copies of texts of books prescribed in the syllabus did notinfringe any copyrights of the publisher as defined in the Copyright Act of 1957.Any number of photocopies could be madeand distributed, the court ruled, as long as it was meant for “purpose ofeducational instruction. d. Copyright policy in practice elsewhere 40 years back, in 1980 Universityof Ottawa (Canada) published guidelines for legal deposit legislation where itclearly states that though the publishers have control over their publication,the objective of accessibility to the national deposit collection cannot beignored. The journal article should be deposited at National Legal DepositInstitution. e. Public opinions Lis-Forum is the e-mail based largest discussion forum of libraryprofessionals in India. Since, last few weeks, huge discussion is going onregarding the plea of trio publishers in Delhi High Court. Many renownedlibrary professionals in India expressed their strong view that they areagainst to ban Sci-hub. Many tweaked in Delhi High court twitter and othersocial media that if it happens, it give rise to digital colonization etc. Let’s discuss alternative ways to tackle commercialpublishers. To overcome copyright issue, authors should know copyright laws,embargo period, and different OA methods to re-invent OA movement to resolvecopyright issue. a. Our scientific communityshould boycott review and publishing to foreign commercial publishers. b. Archiving preprints: To access free fulltext articles apart from searching in free Open Access journals, the next bestoption is uploading preprints of their papers in their IRs. c. Plan S is an initiative for OA Sciencepublishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", aconsortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve Europeancountries. The plan advocates authors to publish their work in openrepositories or in journals that are available to all by2021. The "S" stands for "shock". NationalKnowledge Commission (NKC) & New Education Policy (NEP) can consider thebelow discussed points. i. As per the existing Book Act, submissionof published book in India in any language by the author/publisher ismandatory. In the same way, ruling can be made to submit an article publishedby the author. ii. Well-knownprofessional institutions like IITs, IIMs, IISc etc. can start domain-basedquality journals at par with the journals published byACM, ACS, ASCE and ASME. iii. Government can strengthen Indian ScienceAbstract (ISA) which has been published by (NISCAIR)which is covering around 1500 journals. iv. “One Nation,One Subscription” is our Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi’s ambitious goal thatwill prove to be a game changer for the scientific community and individualresearchers. More significantly, the government has also proposed to buy bulksubscriptions of all the important scientific journals across the world, andprovide everyone in India to have free access to them. This avoids multiplesubscriptions and saves foreign exchange also. Government can boost ISA by taking stepslike a. Includejournals not only from Science but Social Sciences and Humanities also. b. AuthorisedGovt. agencies should recognize peer-reviewed quality journals and assist theauthors to avoid predatory journals. c. Rankingof Indian institutions which has been conducted by National InstitutionalRanking Framework (NIRF) should be based on ISA and not on Scopus. It force theauthors to publish in Indian journals which are open access compliant. In asignificant development, Government India is proposed to bring newScience, Technology, Innovation, Policy (STIP) which aims to establish a systemwhereby all researchers in India can access the research published in topinternational journals at no cost said Akhilesh Gupta, senior advisor to DST ina press release on 6th January, 2021. He continued that, “currentlythe subscription cost is exceeding Rs.1500 crore annually for which individualcolleges cannot negotiate with publishers. Only a small fraction of researchersis now able to benefit from theses subscriptions and we would like to changethat.” Scientific publishing has become a pure businessincreasingly characterized by consolidation, soaring subscription fees, andrising profit margins. As a result, plenty of scientists, students, andjournalists advocate for an empire of academic piracy as a necessity. It alsoleads to the question that what value the publishers add to any articlepublished. Open Access activists likeAlexandria Elbakyan and Peter Suber who advocate OA and provide the paywalljournals free of cost have become darlings of majority of academic communitythroughout the world, for which the greedy commercial journals are onlyresponsible. Commercial journals are a twice-paid product, bought first bytaxpayers and secondly by scientists. Here, we have to notice two points i.e.Academicians are not using the research articles for any commercial purpose andSci-hub, Libgen are not making any monetary benefit out of it. You can access the full article @https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ivtiVxelxw28p2EbQDapF-kERNON0bmH/view?usp=sharing Dr. K.C.Gangadhar, Nitte Meenakshi Institute ofTechnology & Dr.Nagaraja A., RV Institute of Technology & Management, Bangalore

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Use and Perception of Sci-Hub by Library and Information Science (LIS) Professionals: From an Indian Perspective
by Vasanth 07 Jan '21

07 Jan '21

Dear Sir/Madam, Here is a brief survey of use and perception of Sci-Hub by Indian LIS professionals. It is a small survey done in December 2019. Hope this may be of interesting to LIS forum members. This brief paper along with data analysis has been posted in SocArXiv. You can download or view the article from the following link.DOI of paper: 10.31235/osf.io/2jzng ------------------------- With best wishes Vasantha Raju NLibrarianGFGC-TalakaduMysore

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Online All India Convention 'Make Knowledge Free, Not Private Property' | 9 January
by madhan muthu 07 Jan '21

07 Jan '21

Online All India Convention 'Make Knowledge Free, Not Private Property' Date and time: 9 January 2021, Saturday, 4 PM. *Speakers:* - Prof. P Balaram, former Director, IISc Bangalore - Prof. S C Lakhotia, INSA Senior Scientist, Banaras Hindu University - Prof. Soumitro Banerjee, General Secretary, Breakthrough Science Society and Professor, IISER Kolkata The recent lawsuit filed in the Delhi High Court by the publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society against Sci-hub and LibGen for copyright infringement has brought to the fore the debate between legality and ethicality of limiting access to knowledge. This discussion will address key concerns. *Register Online for the convention <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfh4tU7AIYBds7d-ndZIaa8fK-rO_oyw6F…>* We look forward to your participation in the convention. Mr. Pratyush Sikdar On behalf of Breakthrough Science Society 8A Creek Lane, Kolkata-700014 www.breakthroughindia.org -- Madhan, M

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Delhi High Court is hearing a petition by Elsevier against Sci-Hub
by madhan muthu 06 Jan '21

06 Jan '21

Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) tweeted at 0:07 pm on Wed, Jan 06, 2021: Delhi High Court is hearing a petition by Elsevier against Sci-Hub and LibGen seeking restraining orders on publication of articles which infringe the copyright of Elsevier. https://t.co/jX39Qj02HW (https://twitter.com/LiveLawIndia/status/1346707434228731904?s=03) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download?s=13 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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What is post corona procedure to admit readers into the library ?
by Narenthiran R 05 Jan '21

05 Jan '21

Dear Friends, I would be grateful if any of you shared the guidelines for post corona procedure to admit readers (non-staff) into the library. Of course we will adhere to basic rules of using sanitizer, thermometer ..etc. Thanks Narenthiran -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Draft Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Proposes Major Changes to India’s Open Access Culture | SpicyIP
by madhan muthu 05 Jan '21

05 Jan '21

https://spicyip.com/2021/01/draft-science-technology-and-innovation-policy-… The substantive portion of the policy is spread out in eleven chapters and for the purpose of this post we shall discuss the first chapter titled “Open Science”. It is to be noted – the Ministry of Science and Technology is concerned only with STEM type sciences <https://dst.gov.in/about-us/introduction>, while research in social sciences seems to fall under the ambit of the Indian Council of Social Science Research <https://icssr.org/>, under the Ministry of Education. Therefore on the face of it, research in social sciences are not covered by this policy and it would thus be very pertinent to see whether the Ministry of Education will be joining this endeavour or not. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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LIS Innovation Award by Informatics
by Ishwar Goudar 05 Jan '21

05 Jan '21

LIS Innovation Award by Informatics Nominations invited on or before Jan 15, 2021. Dear Professionals, I am sure many of you would have done something INNOVATIVE in your library in the recent past - it could be a new/improved process, a service or a product...if yes, why don’t you submit it for “Informatics Innovation Award in LIS” and win an Award? You may like to see some examples Innovation listed in LTC website. Innovation is the backbone of growth and change. It is the change-driver for a better future. The future of library is constantly challenged by fast-changing media and technologies. To encourage innovative practices and to promote innovative culture in libraries, Informatics, as part of its annual Library Technology Conclave (LTC2020), has instituted the Informatics Innovation Award, beginning LTC2021. There will be two awards, one each for the following two categories of libraries: Category-1: Universities/Educational Institutions offering Ph.D. & post-Doctoral programs; Research Institutes. Category-2: Schools, PU, Diploma, UG & PG Colleges and Public Libraries – (Includes Medical, Engineering & Management etc. and Science, Commerce, Arts and Humanities). This award shall be announced on 30th January 2021, the last day of the conclave, following a Case Study Session on "Innovation in Libraries" to be presented by Nominees short-listed by the Committee of Juries for this award. Nomination is open on the LTC2021 website https://LTC2021.org Libraries are invited to submit their nominations online. January 15, 2021 is the last date for filing the nomination online. The Conclave, which had many pre-conclave webinars since November, is scheduled for 27-30 January 2021 in a webinar model. N. V. Sathyanarayana | Chairman & Managing Director | Informatics India Ltd. | Bangalore 560004 |INDIA | | www.informaticsglobal.com<http://www.informaticsglobal.com> -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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India’s plan to pay journal subscription fees for all its citizen may end up making science harder to access
by Mohan Hr 04 Jan '21

04 Jan '21

India’s plan to pay journal subscription fees for all its citizen may end up making science harder to access India, the world’s second-most populous country, is planning to make scholarly literature available for everyone under its latest science, technology and innovation policy. The policy will push for the whole country to have a nationwide subscription to replace existing subscriptions paid by different research and education institutions to access research journals. The Indian government is in talks with the world’s top scientific publications, including one of the biggest scholarly publishers, Elsevier, to create the system. If it works, India will become the largest country to give access to paywalled journal articles to more than 1.3 billion of its citizens. https://theconversation.com/indias-plan-to-pay-journal-subscription-fees-fo… With regards -- hrmohan -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging
by Mohan Hr 04 Jan '21

04 Jan '21

2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging https://theconversation.com/2020-locked-in-shift-to-open-access-publishing-… Interesting to know the status of OA in Australia. With regards -- hrmohan -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Two Workshops in eScience and Digital Libraries domain > 7th & 8th January 2021
by Sathyanarayana NV 04 Jan '21

04 Jan '21

Dear LIS Professionals Greetings of Happy New Year for a safe & secure times ahead! LTC 2021 which started with pre-Conclave series of lectures beginning November last year is having two know-how rich pre-Conclave workshops this week on the following themes by two experts in the respective domains. This is an opportunity for LIS profession to get a leg up by learning and upgrading their knowledge as well as skill sets in the emerging technologies. Workshop 1 > 7th January 2021 > 10 AM – 1 PM * AI For eScience > Presented by: Dr. Mandar Mutalikdesai, AI Solutions & Practice Leader, IBM, Bangalore * 10 – 11:15 AM What is AI? - A Primer. · 11:45 AM – 1 PM Efficiency & Ethics: A balancing act with AI AI and Machine learning technologies are already being used to analyse digital collections and identify topics and entities, assign metadata and enable non-textual search and discovery in digital Libraries. This workshop presents an introductory view of Artificial Intelligence with potential applications in eScience. It will briefly introduce concepts of machine learning and neural networks and then look at a few applications of AI in various industries. Workshop 2 > 8th January 2021 > 3 – 6 PM * Semantic Search: The current Frontier of Search Technology > Presented by: Prof. Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Roux Institute for Experiential AI, North Eastern University at Silicon Valley, California, USA * 3 – 4:15 PM Semantic Search * 4:45 – 6 PM Query Analytics Semantic Search lies at the cross roads of information retrieval and natural language processing. This workshop will provide an overview of not only the steps and processing of building a semantically annotated index with the help of a knowledge base, but offers an understanding of the data science needed to use as relevance feedback, the usage log stream of the semantic search engine. These workshops are presented online and are free as part of LTC2021. Please visit LTC2021 site www.LTC2021.org<http://www.LTC2021.org> to register. Once again, our best wishes for a safe and happy New Year! N. V. Sathyanarayana | Chairman & Managing Director | Informatics India Ltd. | Bangalore 560004 |INDIA | | www.informaticsglobal.com<http://www.informaticsglobal.com> | -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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