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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

It's an issue pretty much anybody who's gone through a tertiary academic institution should have some awareness of. That's well over half the adult population these days in the US and likely EU.

Being cut off from library access was a huge shock for me on leaving uni.

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The vast majority of my classmates in undergrad barely even understood what it meant to have online access to the library resources. They barely even bothered getting the books for their classes, much less going and researching outside of those materials directly on the syllabus.

Even a lot of my friends who got master's and Ph.D.'s barely cared about the politics of the library and journal articles. They did what they had to do to achieve their degree and got out of there. Very few cared at all about the library.

Addressing your and numerous other responses, should is doing some heavy lifting in my comment. The key factum however is the percentage of the population with tertiary academic experience. It is a supermajority.

Again, not really. Most professions, once you leave University, do not consult research materials. They have no reason to. And when these folks are in university, the materials are all super easily accessible.

It's literally a non-issue for, I would bet, a majority of people. It just doesn't exist in their day to day. Regardless of how that actually impacts the world.

Perhaps in industries you are familiar with. Many industries, however, would have a continued professional development disposition that benefits from continued access to fundamental research. Mine certainly does and the lack of access impoverishes that professional development.

Maybe it's the other way around - or at least a feedback loop? That is, because they're cut off from easy access to research materials, most people don't consult them past graduation -- which ensures there's no expectation or benefit from consulting academic work outside of few specific professions, effectively keeping people dumb and stumbling in the dark relative to what they'd otherwise be.

Nah. Most people barely change channels from whatever they’re watching.

Even if you made it super easy and public access, I doubt 50% or more of the population would know or care.

> Nah. Most people barely change channels from whatever they’re watching.

They very much do if it's sportsball or political news.

> I doubt 50% or more of the population would know or care.

Don't need 50% of the population. 5% would be more than enough to get the snowball rolling. All that's needed is to normalize that perusing scientific papers is how you learn about things, much like reading books or using Google is normalized.

I love your optimism.

I often find people who don't even really know where the local library is, or even begin to know what they might do with it.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem. It doesnt exist in their day to day because they cant access it legally. Also, the political space would profit from more open access. How can I base my arguments on facts and logic if the primary sources of the facts are not accessible to me? How can I show others the facts if they cant access the source without getting into legal trouble?

Because the scientific journals publish all of the facts and nothing but the facts?

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