“Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.
If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.
Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript.”
there still is an issue with older articles that authors don’t have PDFs of, or whose authors aren’t in the field anymore (or even died). That problem will stay, but _if_ authors start putting their publications on arXiv, their university server, etc. en masse, also will get smaller over time.
Leading journals allow publishing preprints on arXiv only as there was considerable pressure. In the quantum physics community (where it was expected to post results on arXiv), a journal not allowing arXiv was not considered. So either their de facto allowed, or even started officially to do so.
I don't remember the exact dates, but Nature (who had been hesitant for a long time) gave in as well. They resisted a long time as they were (and are) considered a badge of honor.
> These papers that have been paid for by tax payers and peer reviewed for free should be made freely available legally.
I strongly disagree with this. Labor has value, and we shouldn't let capital alone dictate ownership. The people who do the research are more important than the bureaucrats who signed the checks.
> papers that have been paid for by tax payers and peer reviewed for free should be made freely available legally
There is a legitimate argument in the value added of curating research into journals. The publishers don’t do this. But simply eliminating that curation mode is unlikely to be feasible.
Sure, I'm not saying these journals should be abolished, i merely want the papers to be available for free.
You might still want to browse the journal to see what is hot right now.
>I hear they generally are "freely" available, just email the authors and ask.
I didn't downvote you but the way contracts work, the researchers are not allowed to share the final published article that was professionally edited and typeset by the journal. What they can legally share are the preprints and manuscripts.[1]
Yes, some researchers may ignore the contract they signed (wink wink) and share the final published pdf. IME whenever I asked for a paper, I got the preprint -- which means the author honored their publishing contract. The preprint is fine in most cases because it will have the main idea of the research. However, it's often missing the pretty graphs and illustrations that the journal adds.
Having to wait for an author to email you a copy isn't a viable solution. Even getting authors to post a free copy, which is NIH mandate is often overlooked...
You're not wrong but that system only works on a very small scale. Do you really think the authors would be amenable to answering 10000 emails with the exact same request?
In general, an averagely successful paper in most disciplines will get 200-250 readers. It’s only when there is outsized media attention that there is any issue.
And luckily, for those cases today, sci-hub is available.
“Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.
If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.
Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript.”
there still is an issue with older articles that authors don’t have PDFs of, or whose authors aren’t in the field anymore (or even died). That problem will stay, but _if_ authors start putting their publications on arXiv, their university server, etc. en masse, also will get smaller over time.