[knzhou]

Libgen is one of the greatest contributors to scientific productivity worldwide, possibly beaten only by Sci-Hub. Just about everybody in academia knows about it. If it ever vanished, some of us could probably still get by trading files from person to person, but nothing could be as perfect as what we got now.

[bscphil]

> Just about everybody in academia knows about it

Just about everybody in academia uses it, too, especially in the case of Scihub. I can't imagine taking the time to actually check whether I have access to some journal when I want to read a paper, let alone jump through all the hoops before you can get a PDF. The first thing we did when my partner's paper was recently published was check to see if it was on Scihub yet. (It was!)

[tripzilch]

I remember, in the early 2000s, going through all the trouble of logging into my university library's proxy portal to get access to certain scientific papers. I probably wouldn't have done that if SciHub was available, and it probably would have opened up my eyes sooner to the fact that most people don't even have access to such a portal. Although, frankly, it was a different web back then and if you were persistent you could actually find anything.

[lioeters]

> possibly beaten only by Sci-Hub

Today I learned that Library Genesis is actually "powered by Sci-Hub" as its primary source.

So I guess they're sister projects by similarly minded people (who seem to be mostly/originally based in Slavic countries, which I find interesting culturally - perhaps it's due to a looser legal environment + activist academics?).

> Just about everybody in academia knows about it.

That really says something about the state of society, this tension between copyright laws (and the motivations behind them) and the intellectual ideal of free and open access to knowledge.

[RiceAndWater]

It's actually more the other way round, since Libgen stores all of sci-hub's papers for them.

[mikorym]

I am not an expert on the topic, but I believe that in the former Soviet Union it was common between mathematicians to pass around preprints (a la arXiv). These then perculated through to the West. I think it had to do with the USSR and their restrictive (if we are being euphemistic) policies towards academics.

[gdy]

"the USSR and their restrictive (if we are being euphemistic) policies towards academics."

What do you mean?

[alteria]

Their policies were for more than "restrictive" is how I'm reading it

See [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Sov...

[mikorym]

Yes. I'm saying restrictive to describe the effect on academic papers. The effect on (oppression of) the academics themselves was much worse.

[gdy]

No, that's BS.

There are well known cases of genetics and cybernetics being banned for ideological reasons during Stalin's time. Scientific books and articles of convicted 'enemies of the state' were dangerous to possess in that time too. Some scientists used ideological 'arguments' in scientific debates which were dangerous to argue against.

But all that, AFAIK, ended after Stalin's death in 1953.

Moreover, I've never heard anything about mathematics in this regard.

[userbinator]

who seem to be mostly/originally based in Slavic countries, which I find interesting culturally - perhaps it's due to a looser legal environment + activist academics?

You see the same situation with Asia --- it's a collectivist culture, they have a very different perspective on IP in general.

[lioeters]

That makes sense, thanks for pointing that out. I can see how it's related to the value system of collectivist (as opposed to individualist) cultures, and how they see intellectual property - as a common good, beyond personal/private ownership.

[asdff]

It's saved me probably 3 grand over the course of college. I would have had to take on debt otherwise to pass my courses.