When I was research assistant for a noted left author back in 2005, I did the same via the local library - in the not particularly intellectually-minded Florida - where it was easy to get anything I wanted and the cost negligible. I hunted down some obscure references, too.
The people tweeting can do the same thing today, of course. It's a simple matter for me to hit up the local library, look up the academic articles I want, order them through interlibrary loan. Today, it doesn't even cost me xeroxing fees. in this state, the library absorbs that cost. It might not be that way in every state. In Florida, when I got articles for the lefty author, I could keep them on my account to read using a reader. IF I wanted to pass them on to her, I had to make copies - at a cost of 5cents each in 2005.
Getting even more obscure stuff was also easy. Email said author and ask. They'd either mail it or email it. Just the other day, I unpacked half a filing box fully of Andie's papers he mailed me. :)
Back then, there were no other resources merely available. In other words, there wasn's stuff accessible in seconds online. You had to do some work for everything, wether it was buy a book, check it out at the library, go to a conference to hear it, email or phone or mail the author, obtain conference proceedings, etc.
Today, I suppose what irritates people is that there is some stuff available for free and then, if you want more, you have to pay. It's relative.
So, while I agree with the general point, I think the difference is that, back then, nothing was simply available without having to work a little. Today, there are seas of information freely available, but that sea is just prelude to a deeper and wider ocean of more stuff for which one has to pay for the convenience of getting it quickly. It's speed and what people have become used to that is probably what really matters. We converse at a faster rate, and want access to information faster and faster.
In the US, no one has to actually pay for a lot of it. Again, it's often a matter of going to the library and ordering it and waiting a day or three. or writing the author for a copy. The only author who's ever ignored me was bell hooks when I was trying to hunt down one of her quotes. I wrote/phoned three times, even dropping the name of the prestigious journal for which I was writing. De nada.
At 10:51 AM 1/18/2013, Jordan Hayes wrote:
>>http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/2013117111237863121.html
>
>[...]
>
>>But for every researcher plaintively tweeting that they
>>need a paywalled PDF, there are many for whom tracking
>>down barricaded knowledge seems too much trouble. Instead,
>>they rely on what resources are available.
>>This means that a lot of academic research, some of which
>>could have profound political implications, is ignored.
>
>So we have what some would call a 'natural experiment' here: even just 10
>years ago, the percentage of published academic research available
>electronically -- behind a paywall or not -- was tiny. Back then access
>to nearly all academic research took phone calls, xerox machines, and
>money to get access to. So that "rely on what resources are available"
>idea was even more so true back then.
>
>How are we doing with a portion -- admittedly still nowhere close to "all"
>-- of it freely available? Are the 'profound political implications' that
>were nearly *always* ignored back then having somewhat of a profound
>impact now? And is there any reason to believe that if the rest of it
>were magically available for free that we'd be that much better off?
>
>/jordan
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