Using the Library

Short Answer

Sci-Hub provides illegal access to published content collected through unethical practices, and the site puts users at risk of phishing, hacking, and identity theft.

More Info

In December 2020, the Washington Post announced that Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub, is under investigation by the US Justice Department on suspicion that she is working with Russian intelligence to steal U.S. military secrets. Sci-Hub, which provides access to millions of scholarly research articles in breach of copyright law, was sued by the publisher Elsevier and court ordered to cease operations in October 2015. Yet the site has defied the order and continues to operate by periodically changing web domains.

Why shouldn't I use Sci-Hub?

Sci-Hub professes to share the goal of open access advocates (including libraries) to make scholarly research accessible to all, but its methods are worse than unethical. Through phishing and hacking campaigns, Sci-Hub actively seeks usernames and passwords from academic libraries, often targeting Western universities, in order to pirate copyrighted articles. Evidence suggests Sci-Hub also may be using academic credentials to plant malware, harvest social security numbers, and track the online activity of Sci-Hub users. For more on this, see this guest post from the Scholarly Kitchen. 

Are there risks if I continue to use Sci-Hub?

There is a push for universities to block campus access to Sci-Hub, as downloading content from these kinds of sites puts universities at risk. In recent history, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) temporarily shut down UCA’s off-campus access to database content when Sci-Hub attempted to use a UCA account to acquire content. The Library was able to neutralize the compromised account so that database access was quickly restored. Database and journal licenses dictate that illegal content harvesting activities will result in loss of campus access, which can have a dire impact on faculty research as well as student learning.

It is also worth noting that libraries justify journal and database subscriptions by assessing annual cost per download from authorized publisher platforms. Yet when students and faculty download articles through platforms like Sci-Hub rather than through the library’s discovery service, journal cost per use increases for that library. (See Rick Anderson’s post to the Scholarly Kitchen for a more detailed explanation.) The library has no way to assess usage of scholarly content from sites like Sci-Hub, but the library can justify purchases and subscriptions when materials are directly requested and used by faculty and students.

What are the alternatives?

The good news is there are many trusted sources of open scholarly publications, including the DOAJ, DOAB, OAPEN, PLOS Journals, PubMed Central, and arXiv. There are other article-sharing projects in the works, including an initiative between Springer Nature and ResearchGate, and an online application called Get Full Text Research (GetFTR).  An initiative of the American Chemical Society, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley, GetFTR can direct users to final, full-text versions of papers (if available through a subscription or open access) or to pre-prints if the publisher permits.

Final Thoughts

All this to say, we strongly encourage you to be careful with your UCA credentials and be wary of how you access scholarly research. We ask this for the sake of your online privacy and for the sake of continued campus access to critical scholarly research. If you have difficulty accessing an article, please let the library assist you. Our interlibrary loan turnaround time for digital articles is usually less than 48 hours. The UCA Library is here to help you find the information you need.