{"doi":"10.7287/peerj.preprints.3100v2","title":"Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature","abstract":"<jats:p>\n                  The website Sci-Hub provides access to scholarly literature via full text PDF downloads. The site enables users to access articles that would otherwise be paywalled. Since its creation in 2011, Sci-Hub has grown rapidly in popularity. However, until now, the extent of Sci-Hub’s coverage was unclear. As of March 2017, we find that Sci-Hub’s database contains 68.9% of all 81.6 million scholarly articles, which rises to 85.2% for those published in toll access journals. Coverage varies by discipline, with 92.8% coverage of articles in chemistry journals compared to 76.3% for computer science. Coverage also varies by publisher, with the coverage of the largest publisher, Elsevier, at 97.3%. Our interactive browser at\n                  <jats:uri>https://greenelab.github.io/scihub</jats:uri>\n                  allows users to explore these findings in more detail. We find Sci-Hub preferentially covers popular, paywalled content, containing 96.2% of citations to toll access journals since 2015. For recently requested articles by Unpaywall users, oaDOI provided access to 48.8% whereas Sci-Hub contained 81.5%. Together, oaDOI and Sci-Hub covered 94.1%, demonstrating that gaps in Sci-Hub’s coverage, especially for open access articles, can be filled using licit services. For the first time, nearly all scholarly literature is available gratis to anyone with an Internet connection. Sci-Hub’s scope suggests the subscription publishing model is becoming unsustainable.\n                </jats:p>","journal":"Publication Server of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Goethe University Frankfurt)","year":2017,"id":10154,"datarank":0.7563475430844833,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.42676385648405024,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.42676385648405024,"corpus_percentile":73.3967664578015,"corpus_rank":3440,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":8,"citers_with_citation_signal":6,"citers_with_endowment":6,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8783,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2017-10-12","fair_score":28.125,"fair_percentile":8.167770419426049,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":36686,"name":"Ariel Rodriguez Romero","orcid":"0000-0003-2290-4927","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36689,"name":"Stephen Reid McLaughlin","orcid":"0000-0002-9888-3168","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36690,"name":"Bastian Greshake Tzovaras","orcid":"0000-0002-9925-9623","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":308,"name":"Casey S. Greene","orcid":"0000-0001-8713-9213","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1208,"name":"Daniel S. Himmelstein","orcid":"0000-0002-3012-7446","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":32.5,"fair_a":42.5,"fair_i":12.5,"fair_r":25.0,"fair_zscore":-1.4312,"fair_rationale":{"fair_score":28.12,"has_llm":true,"dimensions":{"F":{"name":"Findable","score":32.5,"criteria":[{"key":"f_has_doi","label":"Has a persistent DOI","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"DOI present","rationale":null},{"key":"f_repository_presence","label":"Indexed in repositories / literature DBs","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"datacite=0, pmcid=False, pmid=False","rationale":null},{"key":"f_persistent_ids","label":"Resolvable scholarly identifiers (OpenAlex)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no OpenAlex id","rationale":null},{"key":"f_metadata_richness","label":"Rich, machine-readable metadata","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.25,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper provides DOIs and links to datasets on Figshare, but no machine-readable metadata (e.g., structured JSON-LD, schema.org markup) is mentioned."}]},"A":{"name":"Accessible","score":42.5,"criteria":[{"key":"a_open_access","label":"Open Access / files deposited","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"Open Access","rationale":null},{"key":"a_retrievable","label":"Free full text retrievable","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"0 OA location(s)","rationale":null},{"key":"a_access_protocol","label":"Clear data/code access protocol","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.25,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper mentions data hosted on Figshare and GitHub, but does not specify a clear, standardized access protocol (e.g., API endpoints, SPARQL) or provide explicit authentication/authorization steps."}]},"I":{"name":"Interoperable","score":12.5,"criteria":[{"key":"i_linked_data","label":"Linked datasets / DataCite relations","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"linked_datasets=0, datacite=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standard_ids","label":"References data via standard accessions","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"accessions=0, trials=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standards","label":"Standard formats, vocabularies & identifiers","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.25,"signal":null,"rationale":"The analysis relies on DOIs, Crossref, and Scopus, but the text does not state that data or code use standard formats like RDF, JSON-LD, or controlled vocabularies beyond basic tabular TSV files."}]},"R":{"name":"Reusable","score":25.0,"criteria":[{"key":"r_license","label":"Clear, open reuse license","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no license","rationale":null},{"key":"r_downloads","label":"Demonstrated reuse (downloads)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"downloads=0","rationale":null},{"key":"r_version","label":"Versioned / maintained","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no version chain","rationale":null},{"key":"r_dataset","label":"Classified as a data resource","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"is_dataset","rationale":null},{"key":"r_reusability","label":"Data-availability statement, license & reproducibility","kind":"llm","weight":2.0,"fraction":0.333,"signal":null,"rationale":"A CC BY 4.0 license is stated, and code/data are on GitHub/Figshare, but no explicit data-availability statement for all underlying data is included, and reproducibility details (e.g., versioned environments) are insufficiently described."}]}},"suggestions":["Add structured metadata annotations (e.g., schema.org/DOI) in the manuscript and data repositories to improve Findability.","Provide a direct link to an API endpoint or clear step-by-step access protocol for downloading the datasets programmatically.","Adopt standard vocabularies (e.g., Dublin Core, PROV-O) and serialization formats (e.g., JSON-LD, RDF/XML) for the metadata and data.","Include a formal data-availability statement listing all underlying datasets and their persistent identifiers (DOIs or archived URLs).","Supply a complete software environment specification (e.g., Dockerfile, conda-lock) to ensure exact reproducibility."],"model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","agent_version":"fair_agent_v2","fulltext_source":"unpaywall_pdf"},"fair_model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","fair_agent_version":"fair_agent_v2","fair_fulltext_source":"unpaywall_pdf","fair_has_llm":true,"fair_computed_at":"2026-06-18T00:51:08.516117Z","clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}