Sci-Hub

Summary

Sci-Hub is a shadow library founded by Alexandra Elbakyan in 2011 that provides free access to over 88 million research papers and books by bypassing publishers' paywalls. It is the largest database of full-text scientific papers available for free, with approximately 80% of the collection being journal articles (primarily medicine, followed by physics, chemistry, biology, and humanities). The entire collection (~100 TB) is available via torrent network. The site serves approximately 400,000 requests per day and has been the subject of extensive legal battles with academic publishers like Elsevier.

Keywords

shadow-library open-access research-papers paywall-bypass academic piracy scientific-literature

Topics

Academic Publishing / Multi-domain

Research notes

• Legal status: operates in violation of copyright law in many jurisdictions. Has faced lawsuits from Elsevier, ACS, and other publishers. Domains frequently change (sci-hub.ru, sci-hub.su, sci-hub.st, etc.). A 2018 study estimated Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. Newer articles can be requested via Sci-Net platform.