Library and Information Science, especially in Germany, seems to have a conformism bias when it comes to shadow libraries. Statements from main actors in the field (e.g. most recently: https://annas-archive.org/blog/critical-window.html) don’t find a counterpart in independent research on the topic.
Although the challenge at hand could hardly be more pressing, given e.g.
* German research institution collectively to hand over large parts of their acquisition budget (hence, their bargaining power) to the science publishers’ oligopoly, tellingly calling *this* their “transformation” strategy, the DEAL.
* Over and over, blanket permissions to process and redistribute large parts of human knowledge are claimed by big publishers and big tech, nurturing their LLMs, while libraries like the Internet Archive are even denied to allow individual readers to lend ebooks (https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/04/internet-archive-responds-to-appellate-opinion/)
Though by now, almost all governments officially agree to the goal of the Open Access transformation, chances are, we are collectively missing this goal.
In this session, we will check:
* If shadow libraries might turn out as the most likely plan B for OA transformation and
* if yes, what does that mean in practice – especially, in relation to (official, government funded) library work in a country like Germany.