Download This PaperThe Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library
Bodó, B. (2018). The Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library. In J. Karaganis (Ed.), Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education (pp. 25-53). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
32 Pages Posted: 12 Jun 2015 Last revised: 20 Jul 2018
Date Written: November 4, 2014
Abstract
RuNet, the Russian segment of the internet is now the home of the most comprehensive scientific pirate libraries on the net. These sites offer free access to hundreds of thousands of books and millions of journal articles. In this contribution we try to understand the factors that led to the development of these sites, and the sociocultural and legal conditions that enable them to operate under hostile legal and political conditions. Through the reconstruction of the micro-histories of peer produced online text collections that played a central role in the history of RuNet, we are able to link the formal and informal support for these sites to the specific conditions developed under the Soviet and post Soviet times.
Keywords: piracy, open access, Library Genesis, scientific publications
JEL Classification: O3, O34, O17
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
