[Noisebridge-discuss] sci/med journal access in hackerspaces?

Praveen Sinha dmhomee at gmail.com
Sat Oct 3 17:17:04 UTC 2015


Hi folks,

I've asked this question before in private with not a lot of good
responses, but I'll put it out to a wider audience.  One of the things that
is nice about being a university is full online journal access.

For myself, in the past I've had friends inside a uni run an underground
proxy server for me so I can access said licensed content ("Right to Read
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html>" anyone?).  UC
Berkeley offers the general public library access for $100 a year, which is
great but cost prohibitive for starving hackers

My question is: is there someway we can get hackerspaces and members forge
a path to having access to non-open access journals?  Maybe through some
sort of library grant, or charity access, or something?  My library
knowledge here falls short.  But there are multiple great reasons for us to
do this:

           * accelerate research and innovation at a grassroots/citizen
level.  One of the biggest wins I see here is with citizen driven disease
research (austin just opened a medical hackerspace
<http://district.life/2015/10/02/launching-the-first-medical-makerspace-in-the-usa/>).
Can you imagine what the cyborg group could do with a broader network?
           * open access journals are great, but the coverage falls short
           * for a lot of folks who have never had access to a university,
it's simply a matter of fair educational access
           * it can encourage projects to re-invent journal access itself

Would love to hear ideas or possible points of contact!

Love,
Praveen
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