One reason JSTOR is used so much is that it shows up in Google and Google Scholar. Especially for humanities topics, it is (along with Project MUSE), the predominant source of academic material in the humanities that routinely appears in such searches. Second, it's useful for a great many WP topics--it covers from v. 1 up to the last few years for hundreds of important journals-- see [[JSTOR]]
The first step in accessing information is knowing that it exists. The availability of these sources are what makes it possible for non-academics to work intelligently in WP on a very wide range of otherwise impossible topics. Contrast this with 15 years ago, when it would be necessary to go to a substantial academic library to even see the indexes--to even find out what the journals were that might cover a topic.
There's almost always a free source of anything, at least through interlibrary loan, though it often needs the help of a librarian to identify and access it. Trying to organize things so people can identify and access such sources themselves is one of the principal things I and many others in the profession have been working on for years--at the moment it still takes practical experience. I and the other librarians on WP will be glad to help anyone who asks.
For the true long-term solution, see [[open access]] on wikipedia.
On 9/12/07, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/11/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
John Lee wrote:
On 9/11/07, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Looking through dozens of articles, I find that many link to journals that are hosted on JSTOR. JSTOR is a fine repository of information, but it is not free. People researching from home do not have access to the articles that are cited, and are expected to pay to see them, unless they go to a participating library, usually a university library. Very few other people have access to their collection.
The fact is that these are journal articles that can be found in most good libraries in their paper format. They are then free and available to everyone. In fact, JSTOR is simply a pay-to-view library. Consider too that the actual source is the journal cited, not JSTOR per se.
As such, I would encourage peopl to link directly to the magazine that contained the article, not the JSTOR collection which will charge to read it. We speak of free content and free images. I want to suggest that we expand the focus to free external links as well.
Well, minor nitpick: we're free as in speech, not free as in beer. :p
Anyhow, if this only applies to magazines/journals where a free equivalent is available, I'm all for it. Otherwise, I think it's ridiculous - if no free equivalent is available, we should use the best sources we've got, regardless of whether we have to pay to access them. I've seen articles citing subscription-only web sources have their references removed because some editors were of the view that only sources you can freely view online can be cited. (In such a case, I guess we should stop citing meatspace newspapers we have to pay for.)
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My view on it has been that if references of equal quality are available, but some are free (gratis) and some paid, we should use the free ones. If some free references are available, but superior paid ones are out there, we should use both. And if nothing free is out there, we shouldn't hesitate to use the paid ones. Sometimes, paid references are the only ones out there, and those are still often accessible free through a public library.
I don't understand why we're promoting JSTOR, rather than linking to the journal directly?
Seldom in the sciences is it the case that there are references of equal quality to choose from. I can almost never tie my contributions to free journals, except for the American Journal of Botany. But I don't site JSTOR, because it can be irritating. But, actually, if the article has an abstract they usually allow access to the first page for free, so it's not true that everything on JSTOR is pay.
KP
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Apart from the obvious "JSTOR is better than nothing", a lot of times even if there's a free version online, editors won't know where to find it. I can easily reference stuff via JSTOR, but beyond that, unless it's Astronomy or Astrophysics, I don't know where to find references (You find those with ADS). I've cited ~$150 textbooks, which aren't free (gratis or libre). Citations are just that - they tell you where to go look for stuff. Cites should include as much help as possible, including links, pay or not. Link to pay archives for newspapers, journals or whatever else where free ones don't exist.
Encourage people to check citations.
WilyD
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