I need some books paywalled behind Oxford Politics Trove and they aren’t on Anna’s lib, Zlib, Libgen, Memory of the World, Aaarg, or the Internet Archive. Not sure to whom else to turn to. I hate that knowledge like this is paywalled, and I highly doubt the authors will be paid if I pay the highway robbery of a price.
What makes you think it’s a myth?
Because it is a myth. Many friends have attempted this and got no response whatsoever. Pretty much almost never have they actually gotten access to the papers by mailing the researchers directly.
People are busy, and academics especially get tons of emails to wade through. When we say that authors will gladly share their papers, it means that the incentives are aligned such that it benefits them to share their work for free. It doesn’t mean that they’ll drop everything else to respond to your email.