This document summarizes challenges with access to information in developing countries like Kazakhstan compared to wealthy institutions like UC Berkeley. It discusses how a Kazakh neuroscientist and students had to pirate research papers and books when they lacked funding for expensive journals. Interviews at a new university in Kazakhstan found students and faculty resorting to workarounds like personal networks, illegal downloads, and expired university logins from abroad to access information. The document argues information should be a public utility rather than controlled by private publishers, and encourages building international research networks and advocacy for more open access to scholarship.

1. Thinking Critically about the
Information Economy in America and
Kazakhstan
Celia Emmelhainz
Anthropology Librarian
ANTH 189, UC
Berkeley
20 April 2016

2. Which information matters?

4. Aaron Swartz, age 26

5. 5 years later: 48 million papers

6. Alexandra Elbakayan, 27
Kazakh neuroscientist

7. “When I was a student in Kazakhstan
university, I did not have access to any
research papers… Payment of 32
dollars is just insane when you need to
skim or read tens or hundreds of these
papers… I obtained these papers by
pirating them. Later I found there are
lots and lots of researchers… just like
me, especially in developing countries.”
- Alexandra Elbayakan

8. Posts from international
researchers after the closure of
library.nu in 2012
 “It's like the Library of Alexandria just burnt
down. Again.”
 “I am from a third world country where
buying original books is way too
expensive... library.nu was a sea of
knowledge for me”
 “we the poor living in the south have been
suffocated by the rich and able north”
 “I come from India and… there were no
books available in Statistics (for MSc) to
buy in the first place.”

9. Your Library at UC Berkeley
 70,000 serials and 10 million books
 $50 million budget for 32 libraries
 200 librarians, 200 staff, 600 student
staff

12. Example: Nazarbayev
University
New “western” university in Kazakhstan
Interviews with 21 faculty, students,
librarians

13. Location: Inner Asia

14. “I go to Google
Scholar and entered
some keywords and I
stumbled upon a
really good article
but they’re closed. I
mean, the access is
limited and one would
have to pay for them
and be a professor…
through the institution
they were in.”
- Quralai, in literature

15. Challenges of location
o Limited access to books
o Paywalls on journal articles
o Lack of reliable local sources
o Lack of published information
o Systemic issues; not the fault of
Atameken U. or Kazakhstan

16. A way around?
• Personal networks and asking for favors
• Downloading PDFs from public sources
• Google Scholar and Amazon previews
• Using friends’ university logins from the USA…
until they’re cut off!
• Illegal downloads from Sci-Hub, Bookzz, LibGen:
“books on my hard drive which I should not talk
about.”

17. Use of personal networks
“I sent a journal article out late last year
and the reviewer [said] I need to cite this
book that had been published in 1989.
“It was not available as an ebook, the
library here did not have it. But the author
himself randomly passed through town… it
turned out he had a PDF of the book and
he was able to give it to me.”
– Alex, Professor in
Kazakhstan

18. “My friends…are also sources of information,
because they look for other sources… They
also help me to understand how to construct
my argument. Because when I have a lot of
ideas in my head, and I don’t know how to
construct them in clear places, I have friends
to talk to.”
- Quralai, Kazakh student in literature

19. But: Information Ownership?
Ruth Benedict’s fieldnotes online—with a for-profit publisher
Archaeology materials not relea
because of cultural concerns

20. For class discussion:
Which information “counts” for your research?
How do you access it?
o “unearned bonus” of citizenship, top university
o connected vs. disconnected in research networks
Who has power over information in your area?
Who profits from information? Who pays?
Who controls the sharing or privacy?
o native peoples or cultural heritage institutions?
Is information a public utility or a private good?

21. Final thoughts
o Build your networks: Reach out to
international researchers and invite them in
o Ask a librarian: librarians have the training
and networks to help you find hard-to-access
resources
o Work for change: Join student movements to
open up access to scholarship worldwide:
righttoresearch.org/act/individuals/index.shtml

22. For more info
Celia Emmelhainz,
Anthropology and Qualitative Research Librarian
emmelhainz@berkeley.edu