JSTOR
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JSTOR (Journal Storage), begun in 1995, is an online system for archiving academic journals. It provides full-text searches of digitized (scanned) back issues of several hundred well known journals, some going as far back as over 100 years.
JSTOR was conceived by William Bowen as a solution to the problems faced by libraries, especially research and university libraries, due to the increasing number of academic journals in existence. Most libraries found it prohibitively expensive, both in terms of cost and in terms of space, to maintain a comprehensive collection of journals. By digitizing many journal titles, JSTOR allowed libraries to outsource the storage of these journals with the confidence that they would remain available for the long term. Online access and full-text search ability improved access dramatically. Originally funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, JSTOR is now an independent self-sustaining not-for-profit organization based in New York City.
As of May 2005, the database contains 499 journal titles, over 120,000 individual journal issues, totalling over 17 million pages of text.[1] (http://www.jstor.org/about/facts.html)
Access
JSTOR is a pay service, and mainly sold to libraries, although individual subscriptions are available. Most libraries make it available to library members free of charge, and many libraries have online access, meaning JSTOR can be accessed from home for free for those who have a library account with a participating library. JSTOR lists participating libraries on its website.
See also
References
- JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org), Homepage.
- Roger C. Schonfeld, JSTOR: A History (http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7678.html), Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691115311