For Chinese college students, CNKI is by no means a strange name. It is the largest academic electronic resource integrator in China, which collects more than 95% of officially published Chinese academic resources. From the undergraduate stage, HowNet is almost the only formal channel for students to retrieve and download academic resources. At the end of last year, Zhao Dexin, an 89 year old retired professor, sued CNKI for reprinting more than 160 articles without permission, and charged for downloading them himself. After the fermentation of the incident, the practice of CNKI was ridiculed by netizens as "borrowing chickens to lay eggs". The matter also triggered a discussion on "whether China HowNet is suspected of industrial monopoly". Recently, HowNet once again boarded the microblog hot search. According to the Red Star capital Bureau, recently, a news that "the Chinese Academy of Sciences can't afford to disable the China HowNet database due to the renewal cost of nearly 10 million" spread on social media. The document and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences issued a notice on April 8, saying, "in 2021, the total subscription cost of the Chinese HowNet database of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Group has reached the level of ten million, and the high subscription cost has become the 'Big Mac' in the introduction of resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Group." On April 17, a teacher in charge of implementing the matter in the library office of the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed to Red Star news that the renewal fee of nearly "ten million levels" transmitted online and the suspension of HowNet access are true, and the major institutes of the Chinese Academy of sciences are actively dealing with the impact caused by the suspension of HowNet. "From April 20, 2022, the CNKI database will be stopped. Wanfang and VIP will be used to replace it in the future. The documents that cannot be found can be transmitted by means of documents." As for when the visit to HowNet will be resumed, the teacher said that he was not sure at present, "at least there should be no such plan this year". The Chinese Academy of Sciences stopped using HowNet According to the online information, the suspected literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences issued a notice on April 8 that tongfangzhiwang (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. suspended the access of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the CNKI database. From now on, it will not be able to normally download CNKI science and Technology Journals and doctoral and master's thesis data. The notice also mentioned: "in 2021, the total subscription cost of CAS group's China HowNet database has reached tens of millions, and the high subscription cost has become a 'Big Mac' in the introduction of CAS group resources." On the reasons for the suspension, the notice said: "the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tongfang HowNet company have actively discussed the cost and ordering mode. However, after several rounds of arduous negotiations, China HowNet database still insists on the renewal cost of nearly 10 million, and it is quite harsh in terms of the number of members and the price of each company." Online pictures The notice said that according to the above situation, the literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is considering to form an alternative guarantee for the CNKI database through the VIP journal database and Wanfang dissertation database. The document and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences issued the notice on the trial opening of Wanfang database on the 14th An insider of a science and Engineering Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the Red Star capital bureau that on April 15, his Research Institute issued an email notice to stop renewing the CNKI database of CNKI, which mentioned that the price of CNKI database was too high. According to China business daily, HowNet divides the school into general undergraduate colleges and key undergraduate colleges. According to the number of schools and scientific research, the fees charged are also different. Better schools do more scientific research and use more HowNet resources, so the charge is relatively high. It can be seen from the China government procurement online that in 2022, Shanghai Normal University purchased the "China HowNet" series of electronic resources at the price of 798000 yuan; Beijing Language and Culture University renewed its subscription to CNKI database at the price of 654600 yuan; Central South University Library purchased CNKI database at a price of 1.5 million yuan; The price of Wuhan University of technology purchasing HowNet database in 2022 is 1.2785 million yuan. In contrast, the purchase price of Wanfang database is much lower than that of China HowNet. On February 28, the purchase amount of Wanfang database of Southwest University for nationalities was 338000 yuan; The amount of purchasing 10000 m3 database by the innovation and development center of Qingdao Harbin Engineering University is 180000 yuan. The gross profit margin of HowNet is high According to public data, HowNet is the concept of national knowledge infrastructure, initiated by Tsinghua University and Tsinghua Tongfang. It is an information construction project aimed at realizing the dissemination, sharing and Value-added Utilization of knowledge resources in the whole society. Qixinbao shows that the "China HowNet" project belongs to Tongfang HowNet (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tongfang HowNet"), with Wang Mingliang as the legal representative and general manager. The company is a wholly foreign-owned company, and its 100% controlling shareholder is HowNet International Holdings Co., Ltd. At the same time, Wang Mingliang is also the legal representative of Tongfang HowNet Digital Publishing Technology Co., Ltd. The company was founded on July 8, 1999 and changed from Tongfang optical disc Co., Ltd. on January 15, 2014. At the same time, the legal representative was changed from Lu Zhicheng to Wang Mingliang. Tongfang shares hold 98.98% of Tongfang HowNet Digital Publishing Technology Co., Ltd. Tongfang shares (600100. SH) said in the financial report that Tongfang HowNet is its grandson, holding 100% of its shares, mainly engaged in Internet publishing and service business. It has formed a "China HowNet" (CNKI) portal to provide users with a series of products such as China academic journal database and China doctoral and master thesis database. By the end of 2017, CNKI had more than 20000 institutional users, more than 20 million individual registered users, 2 billion full-text downloads per year, and more than 150000 online users at the same time. Want to read and get HowNet content is not free. However, due to its large and comprehensive advantages in academic resources, university libraries are basically HowNet customers. HowNet has always maintained a gross profit margin of about 50%, which is also related to its extremely high market share. At present, HowNet is already the largest academic electronic resource integrator in China, including more than 95% of officially published Chinese academic resources. However, in recent years, its frequent price increases have triggered protests in Colleges and universities. According to media reports, around 2016, Peking University, Wuhan University of technology and other colleges and universities announced the suspension of HowNet due to the price rise of HowNet. However, later, the above-mentioned schools resumed the use of HowNet. (Xinhua News Agency)