My assessment of our dynamics today suggests a need for library leadership improvements in several areas:

As the dust begins to settle, this is a singular moment for reflections on strategy and leadership among librarians and for academic libraries.

David Tempest, Director of Access Relations at Elsevier, for instance, has argued that if libraries were to know the amount Elsevier charges to others for access, “everybody would drive down, down and down” prices and that would mean that users would pay less for accessing these materials (!). And lower prices for access seem to be unacceptable to publishers.

In general, publishers do not monetarily compensate authors and reviewers for their editorial or published work. Instead, scholars are expected to give out their work for free (or a token payment) to academic publishers, in exchange for their help in disseminating the scholar’s findings across the scientific community. The primary incentive for authors or reviewers is, then, the dissemination of their research. Dissemination enhances the researcher’s reputation, and their prospects of maintaining or improving their position in the academic job ladder. It also increases their impact on the scientific community.

the actual problem to be addressed is not the website itself. It is instead the structure of the current academic publishing and knowledge dissemination system that led to the creation, popularisation, and widespread use of Sci-Hub.