Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com Mambabasa @slrpnk.net 12 mo. ago

Where to turn to if I need books that are paywalled behind overly expensive academic portals?

I need some books paywalled behind Oxford Politics Trove and they aren’t on Anna’s lib, Zlib, Libgen, Memory of the World, Aaarg, or the Internet Archive. Not sure to whom else to turn to. I hate that knowledge like this is paywalled, and I highly doubt the authors will be paid if I pay the highway robbery of a price.

42 comments

Hey mate, I extracted this one from Scribd using this Scribd downloader I found

Issues in Political Theory 2019

As of now I can't find Rethinking political thinkers, but I found it on Academia.edu and it says there for 3usd (premium trial) you can get the PDF
- Awesome! Thank you for telling me about Scribd downloader and finding the first book.
  
  As for the Academia.edu link, it doesn’t seem like premium will provide the PDF, that’s just premium membership. The actual PDFs are governed by individual authors. Seems that author uploaded a preview of the book perhaps to indicate that they contributed to it so it counts as a citation.
  
  You're welcome!
  
  May the winds of the high seas favor you (especially with the 2nd book). I'll try to find it again if I have the time
- MVP 🏆
Did you try sci hub for the separate chapters (if they have separate doi)?
- Sci hub no longer updates, and these books are too recent.
  
  Use libgen
  
  Edit: you can also check the FMHY Wiki for sources.
  
  You sure about scihub? I am finished without it. Do you know what's going on there?
Depending on where you live, you might find them in a university library.
- My library doesn’t have it unfortunately. I’ve asked for help anyway, perhaps through an inter-library loan. We’ll see.
  
  Can’t you ask your university library to order the newest versions?
Have you tried emailing the authors? It's well known that some folks will gladly respond with a copy of the paper at no charge.
- That’s not usually an option for books. Articles, maybe, but I need textbooks.
  
  Welp, I totally misunderstood the question then. Sorry.
- IIRC: The Oxford Politics Trove is more text books than academic papers.
- I don't know why people keep pushing this myth.
  
  What makes you think it's a myth?
What we did in the situation was buy one book and then everyone photocopied it and split the cost
- That works quite well in my country, where book piracy isn’t as policed, but that’s not an option for me because I can’t access or buy a physical copy.
  
  Maybe you can buy it copy it and return it
In the past, with similar issues, I've had good success with requesting the book on Zlib, especially newer books.
annas archive?
- Checked there several times already.
  
  OceanOfPDF?
A long shot but Google Scholar may have some pages/chapters?
- Yeah, that’s a good tip, but I need the whole book. I’ve checked.
@mambabasa What are the names of the books?
- Both are on Oxford Politics Trove. Would you happen to have institutional access?
  
  Issues in Political Theory (4th edn, 2019)
  
  Rethinking political thinkers (1st edn, 2023)
  
  Yes, I’m aware Issues has pirated versions of earlier editions available, I have those already. I’m hoping for the latest version.
  
  Neither are in MAM (private tracker for books). Sorry.
Sci-Hub should still be around, I guess...
Really makes me wonder why they don’t value our work enough to pay us better salaries to afford all the bullshit we’re expected to pay for out of pocket.
- We are slaves

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