Where to turn to if I need books that are paywalled behind overly expensive academic portals?
I need some books paywalled behind Oxford Politics Trove and they aren’t on Anna’s lib, Zlib, Libgen, Memory of the World, Aaarg, or the Internet Archive. Not sure to whom else to turn to. I hate that knowledge like this is paywalled, and I highly doubt the authors will be paid if I pay the highway robbery of a price.
Hey mate, I extracted this one from Scribd using this Scribd downloader I found
Issues in Political Theory 2019
As of now I can't find Rethinking political thinkers, but I found it on Academia.edu and it says there for 3usd (premium trial) you can get the PDF
Awesome! Thank you for telling me about Scribd downloader and finding the first book.
As for the Academia.edu link, it doesn’t seem like premium will provide the PDF, that’s just premium membership. The actual PDFs are governed by individual authors. Seems that author uploaded a preview of the book perhaps to indicate that they contributed to it so it counts as a citation.
You're welcome!
May the winds of the high seas favor you (especially with the 2nd book). I'll try to find it again if I have the time
^ This is why Lemmy is better than the alternatives.
Because there's people on it like any other platform?
because the community is still quite small. Makes interactions more personal which leads to people being less of a dick in my experience.
MVP 🏆
Did you try sci hub for the separate chapters (if they have separate doi)?
Sci hub no longer updates, and these books are too recent.
Use libgen
Edit: you can also check the FMHY Wiki for sources.
I’ve already mentioned in the body that it ain’t on libgen. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a point of asking. I’ll check the other wiki though, thanks.
You sure about scihub? I am finished without it. Do you know what's going on there?
Yes, as a result of SciHub’s ongoing litigation in India, they voluntarily decided to stop updating their database. This is old news. You can look it up.
Have you tried emailing the authors? It's well known that some folks will gladly respond with a copy of the paper at no charge.
That’s not usually an option for books. Articles, maybe, but I need textbooks.
Welp, I totally misunderstood the question then. Sorry.
IIRC: The Oxford Politics Trove is more text books than academic papers.
Depending on where you live, you might find them in a university library.
My library doesn’t have it unfortunately. I’ve asked for help anyway, perhaps through an inter-library loan. We’ll see.
Can’t you ask your university library to order the newest versions?
I did ask them to check if they could access it through interlibrary loan. We’ll see. Buying the book seems prohibitive though. It’s highway robbery prices.
What we did in the situation was buy one book and then everyone photocopied it and split the cost
That works quite well in my country, where book piracy isn’t as policed, but that’s not an option for me because I can’t access or buy a physical copy.
Maybe you can buy it copy it and return it
It’s too expensive ://
That would be really crappy. Don't do that.
A long shot but Google Scholar may have some pages/chapters?
Yeah, that’s a good tip, but I need the whole book. I’ve checked.
In the past, with similar issues, I've had good success with requesting the book on Zlib, especially newer books.
@mambabasa What are the names of the books?
Both are on Oxford Politics Trove. Would you happen to have institutional access?
Issues in Political Theory (4th edn, 2019)
Rethinking political thinkers (1st edn, 2023)
Yes, I’m aware Issues has pirated versions of earlier editions available, I have those already. I’m hoping for the latest version.
Neither are in MAM (private tracker for books). Sorry.
Sci-Hub should still be around, I guess...