Do similar networks exist for other disciplines. Our guess, yes they do. Why do medical professionals and students have to swap articles illegally when they likely have access to them via a academic or public library? We wonder if ease of use (no searching required) and lack of awareness of what their library offers come into play.
A new study, published in the Internet Journal of Medical Informatics, looks at a site aimed specifically at medical professionals and students and finds that thousands of people were obtaining non-open-access materials free of charge. The article says that in a six-month period of watching the unnamed site, nearly 5,500 articles were exchanged, costing journals about $700,000 in that time, or about $1.4-million a year.
The site had 127,626 registered users, who during the study period put in requests for 6,587 journals. There was an 83 percent success rate in finding the article. Nature and Science were the most commonly swapped journals.
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