Sci-Hub

Sci-Hub is a search engine that works in concert with a repository called Library Genesis (LibGen) to give researchers access to a cache of articles taken from academic journals. The repository holds over 50 million articles. In addition to drawing on the LibGen repository, Sci-Hub also uses the login credentials of university students and employees to bypass institutional authentication barriers and access journal content to which the university has licensed access.

Sci-Hub appears to obtain institutional credentials from both people who support the program and willingly surrender their account information to Sci-Hub; and phishing victims who unwittingly give Sci-Hub access to their accounts.

When it accesses an article in this manner, Sci-Hub sends a copy of the article to the requesting party and also deposits a copy of the article in LibGen for future use by others.

If you cannot connect to a library database, Sci-Hub could be the cause. Under the terms of our electronic licenses, publishers may rescind access to subscription sites if systematic or excessive downloads are detected. Such behavior is also prohibited the UWM Libraries Conditions of Use.

During these outages, our investigation process involves us collaborating with the vendor and UITS to identify and suspend the offending accounts.

As with any personal account, you should never share your password. Please remember that the UWM Information Security Policy prohibits sharing your credentials. There are at least two important reasons for this rule:

1. Sharing your passwords places your private and confidential information at risk. Your ePanther password provides access to your Office 365 (e-mail), SharePoint, VPN, uFiles, Canvas, PAWS, and MyUW (payroll) accounts. It may also allow access to other confidential and sensitive university information as well.
2. If you provide your ePanther ID and password to Sci-Hub (or anyone else) for purposes of granting them access to information resources licensed for campus use, you place the University at risk. We would be in breach of our contracts, which could result in legal liability as well as a loss of access. It can also compromise overall University IT security.

• Although you may hit paywalls in your research, you never have to pay to access scholarly materials. All members of the UWM community can request articles and other publications through the free interlibray loan service. Materials can be obtained in as little as one day.

• There are many legal means to support the spread of knowledge. The library, for example, offers several Open Access initiatives and promotes the use of and Open Education Resources.

Content from this page was adapted from the Sci-Hub guide at the University of Utah.