Recently, the news that the National Center for Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation (http://www.ncpssd.org) provides free paper downloads has hit the circle of friends of scholars, humanities and social science students, and researchers.
Compared with databases such as CNKI, the advantage of the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center is that it is free. The center's resources are quite rich, including almost all core journals in the humanities and social sciences. As long as any user registers and logs in, they can use functions such as literature search, resource subscription, online reading, and full-text download. Some people call it "a digital resource that people all over the world can use for free."
Screenshot from National Center for Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation
In fact, the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center was officially launched as early as December 30 last year. On May 17, 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated at the Philosophy and Social Sciences Work Symposium that “the Internet and big data technology should be used to strengthen infrastructure and informatization construction of philosophy and social sciences books and documents, networks, and databases, accelerate the construction of the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center, and build a convenient, fast, and resource-sharing information platform for philosophy and social science research.” In order to implement the spirit of this speech, in September 2016, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China deployed the construction of the "National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center", led by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
At present, the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center mainly has four columns: information, resources, special topics, and services. The resources include four categories: Chinese journals, foreign language journals, foreign language books, and ancient books. It contains more than 10 million documents in the fields of philosophy and social sciences, and provides services such as online reading and full-text downloading. It also contains links to important government agencies, colleges and universities, academic institutions, and databases in the field of philosophy and social sciences at home and abroad for easy access and use by readers. Characteristic resource databases such as the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Academic Journal Database, the Foreign Language Academic Journal Database, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Scientific Research Achievements Database have been initially formed.
In other words, this is a public welfare project invested by the state, which provides academic resources to the public free of charge. In this regard, The Paper reporter interviewed Lu Hunrong, a well-known "resource emperor". He believes that the biggest advantage of this project is that it is in line with the spirit of open access, is free and barrier-free, and is very conducive to the dissemination and utilization of academic results.
HowNet is challenged?
To engage in academic research and obtain literature, especially Chinese literature, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (cnki) is the most important way. Most universities in China will purchase the services of CNKI, so on campus, you can generally download for free using the school IP address.
However, if you log in without an IP address, you can log in with a registered username or purchase a CNKI card to download documents. However, the fee is relatively expensive, 0.5 yuan per page. For users who have graduated or whose institutions have not purchased CNKI database services but need to obtain literature, this is a considerable financial burden. In desperation, many people can only download papers through friends on campus.
Therefore, many netizens regard the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation Center as a competitor of CNKI. So, how is the user experience at the National Documentation Center for Philosophy and Social Sciences? In addition to free downloads of papers, some netizens also found that compared to CNKI, the website of the National Center for Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation has a simple and orderly design, a clear layout, and is easy and fast to use. If you have any questions, you can also use QQ to consult the staff online, which brings a good experience to users.
However, some netizens found that there is still a certain gap between the center and China National Knowledge Infrastructure in terms of resource richness.
As a Chinese database with the highest reputation and number of papers in the country, CNKI has been on the database selection list of major domestic university libraries since its establishment in 1999. However, the sharp price increase of CNKI in recent years has made it difficult for many schools to bear it. In April last year, the news that Peking University would cease CNKI services attracted a lot of attention.
According to media reports, CNKI prices have increased by more than 10% every year. Such high increases have caused many universities to be overwhelmed, and many universities have stopped using CNKI. Not only Peking University has deactivated CNKI, but universities in Shandong, Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Hebei and other places have also had CNKI deactivated and restarted.
