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I'm just going to steal the response I read years ago.
"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers."
I've started l to realize that actual information worth reading is not available. Like I cant access in depth medical course or text book in engineering. Lots of beginner tutorials marketed as 7 minute abs.
Information is valuable and nobody gives it away for free. We have access to a worlds worth of crappy, unvetted trash information. But the vast majority of the good stuff is still locked away as it always was.
Why not? The common 'hack' is to join the wifi at your local uni if you don't have the necessary subscriptions for the platform but lots of stuff is open-access
That's true but what I meant was that when I went to school it opened my eyes to how there is internet information and then there's this other academic information. My own opinion is that I see a distinction between what I can learn online vs what I can learn with a text book. The internet is good at making me think I'm getting this massive access to knowledge when its really more superficial factoids rather than actually knowledge. And that's because knowledge is sold like anything else
I mean sites like library exist and provide large amounts of academic texts for free.
Can you get academic text books from a public library?
Since you mentioned you went to a school already (and assuming you meant some kind of post-secondary school); I do think it's outrageous that some schools limit full library access to only the time one is completing their studies. Lots of former students would benefit and since anyone with access through their employers is likely using the employer's library access, I can't imagine former students would significantly increase the cost of maintaining database access..
I got lucky and still have access through the alumni association at my uni, but I don't believe that's true at all schools.
depends a bit on the text book and library, but yes. that's kind of the point of university libraries (which you normally can also visit, as far as I am aware)
In fact, I just checked: my local uni library will give you a membership card for only a handful of bucks a year
Not my cancer research niche textbooks.