Kudos to Leslie Chan for making a point to librarians to take pride on how much open access they provide to their community rather closed access. I think it is also important for academic institutions not to encourage students to believe only closed access resources are qualified and legitimate to be included in academic work, great example is the journal by the professor from Africa. There are many great journal resources available in open access also.
- Yalini-

I agree with you Yalini! I recently heard someone describe the digital divide as a new form of illiteracy, which took me aback. Now for those who even have access a new barrier arises. The ability to control the production of 'system legitimized knowledge' is crucial to the hierarchies of journal branding. Knowledge production and dissemination has an extreme western bias; but this leaves significant gaps in knowledge that is relevant for many to hear and contribute to. The internet is undoubtedly a tool for social innovation and change - but now it has also become a necessity and without it we are at a significant loss of knowledge. As institutions for the purpose of expanding knowledge and critical thinking, you'd expect universities to be more on board with open access (especially development studies journals)!

Yeah the development studies journals thing really got to me. If you're going to critique inequality in an academic article and then create a barrier that blocks people's access to it, what does that say about the industry? Even the fact that after you leave an academic institution you still need to pay for the articles is kind of silly because information changes all the time and people who are in the workforce who don't have access to the latest relevant material are not going to be putting out the most quality work. Learning should be a lifelong process and barriers to accessing information prevent this from being possible.