Open Access Chronicles: How Did We Get Here? (Chapter 1)

Narrated by Sourya Reddy
Edited by Malavika VN

If you’re a researcher or a college student, chances are, you’ve probably come across websites like Sci-hub. Controversial websites like these allow you to access research that is otherwise available only to those who have access to academic journals, either individually or through an institution. While Sci-hub and others like it are not legal per se, they represent a larger debate that has been at the centre of the academic world for the better part of the last two or three decades.

Should academic research only be behind the steep paywalls of academic journals? Why have more and more researchers been refusing to publish with journals? What is the Open Access Movement and how is it defining our ability to access knowledge? How have these issues been taken up in India?

Through this series, we’ll explore these questions and many more. We’ll take you on this journey with the people, organisations and institutions in India and across the globe who are at the centre of this debate. This video, Chapter 1, describes how academic journals gained control over the supply of knowledge and what led up to the Open Access Movement.

Welcome to the Open Access Chronicles.