For those of you who haven’t heard of Sci-Hub, this website was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan and her intent for developing this site was to remove barriers that would hinder progress in science. The reality is that Sci-Hub does much more than allow visitors to illegally access published journal articles and download scientific papers. What researchers should understand is how Sci-Hub uses an individual’s personal login credentials. While a small number of credentials are donated to Sci-Hub, the majority are taken, often without the knowledge of the individual.

In a recent post from the Scholarly Kitchen (09/18/2018), guest author, Andrew Pitts provides collected evidence and real examples of how Sci-Hub is using personal credentials to get into academic institutions  — “While illegal access to published content is the most obvious target, this is just the tip of an iceberg concealing underlying efforts to steal multiple streams of personal and research data from the world’s academic institutions.”

In June 2016, I published a post entitled, “Sci-Hub: Serving Up Scholarly “Pirated” Journal Articles”, which provides additional information. For those still curious about Sci-Hub, this 2016 bibliography from Stephen Reid McLaughlin might also be of interest.

For now, we hope that our researchers will resist the urge to use Sci-Hub or any other third-party aggregator of this nature, and instead choose our Document Delivery Service for articles not found in the MSK eJournal collection.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

I am delighted to present to our readers and library users our Library Report (11.37 MB), an update highlighting our activities for 2016 and 2017. This report is a celebration of our accomplishments over the last two years. Within these pages, we share information about our operations, services, usage metrics, and staff publications.

I think that you’ll especially enjoy reading about our collaborative projects with users – how we helped to achieve Magnet status, supported the Cancer Center Support Grant, joined a unique team of experts, made the GERIATIC PLAN available to all interested individuals, and participated on a timely project about delirium. Most of all, I hope this report will spark interest in MSK staff to take a few moments to explore a new resource, service, or include us on a future team initiative.

If you want to learn more about the MSK Library or the services we provide, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

I have written before about predatory journals and the importance of asking the right questions before you submit your manuscript for publication.  In May 2016, I published a post about predatory journals and summarized Dr. Morley’s ten steps which researchers can use as a manuscript submission checklist.

Recently, I found a website entitled, “Think. Check. Submit.”, which was developed by several organizations focused on scholarly communications activities. They partnered together in response to issues involving deceptive publishing, and developed an awareness campaign and easy-to-use checklist that researchers can consult when investigating whether a journal can be trusted.

This brief video (1:58 min) from their site highlights their three-step process.

In addition to the video, this website has a more extensive list of questions than the one I previously shared, broken down into three actionable themes.

• THINK – Are you submitting your research to a trusted journal?
• CHECK – Have you used their checklist of questions to assess the journal?
• SUBMIT – Did you answer ‘yes’ to most or all of the questions on their list?

As always, if you still need or want additional support in determining the credibility of a journal or where to publish, don’t hesitate to reach out and ASK US.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services