the simsian review

“Step back and think about this picture. Universities that created this academic content for free must pay to read it. Step back even further. The public — which has indirectly funded this research with federal and state taxes that support our higher education system — has virtually no access to this material, since neighborhood libraries cannot afford to pay those subscription costs. Newspapers and think tanks, which could help extend research into the public sphere, are denied free access to the material. Faculty members are rightly bitter that their years of work reaches an audience of a handful, while every year, 150 million attempts to read JSTOR content are denied every year.”

—Locked in the Ivory Tower: Why JSTOR Imprisons Academic Research - Laura McKenna - Business - The Atlantic  This kind of thing really worries me.  Sometimes I imagine that I will end up being an independent scholar, working on research outside or academia, and these types of barriers will prevent me from reaching information that should be accessible to everyone who wants to absorb it.