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.
Danny
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
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.)
Johnleemk
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.)
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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.
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.)
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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
On 12/09/2007, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
I don't understand why we're promoting JSTOR, rather than linking to the journal directly?
JSTOR's main value (as far as I'm aware; I've never had to use it) is for its vast archives of older material, not for contemporary scientific literature; "linking to the journal" is pretty futile for, say, 1930s economics. It's not quite the same situation as, say, the Springer databases.
We should certainly cite the journal article itself properly, and other than through laziness I don't think anyone really challenges this. A JSTOR link is a bonus, but it's not one of many options; there is this link or, in 95% of cases, there is no link. Take your pick.
Just for information...
Is it still the case that ISBN:s automatically link to some "thingy" that enables one to order the volume from Amazon (and/or perhaps some other book supplier on the web) ?
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 12/09/2007, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
Just for information...
Is it still the case that ISBN:s automatically link to some "thingy" that enables one to order the volume from Amazon (and/or perhaps some other book supplier on the web) ?
Yes. It goes direct to a page listing a few hundred links, which are automatic links into Amazon (and some of their less well-known competitors) and an absurdly large number of deeplinks into library catalogues.
If anyone feels really public-spirited (for the world in general, not just WP), consider writing a patch to Special:Booksources to somehow do on-the-fly integration with xISBN and similar other-editions tools; this would be *incredibly* useful, and would make that page a vital resource rather than a curiosity.
(ISBNs refer to a specific edition or, sometimes, a specific printing; a given work usually has two, often four or six, sometimes literally hundreds or thousands. You can see why the crossreferencing would make this oh so much better)
Andrew Gray wrote:
If anyone feels really public-spirited (for the world in general, not just WP), consider writing a patch to Special:Booksources to somehow do on-the-fly integration with xISBN and similar other-editions tools; this would be *incredibly* useful, and would make that page a vital resource rather than a curiosity.
(ISBNs refer to a specific edition or, sometimes, a specific printing; a given work usually has two, often four or six, sometimes literally hundreds or thousands. You can see why the crossreferencing would make this oh so much better)
Typically, sellers of new books will only show the ISBNs of current editions. Books that have a new edition each year will have a long range of ISBNs and will distinguish hard and soft cover, or even whether there are thumb tabs in the fore edge. I very much agree with the usefulness of a reference work that would sort out the different editions.
Ec
On 12/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Typically, sellers of new books will only show the ISBNs of current editions. Books that have a new edition each year will have a long range of ISBNs and will distinguish hard and soft cover, or even whether there are thumb tabs in the fore edge. I very much agree with the usefulness of a reference work that would sort out the different editions.
Of course, for the average English-language work, you have the US edition, and the UK edition, and possibly an Australian or Canadian edition... and hard and softcover in both... and people have started giving ISBNs to some reprintings, or work on a "new cover art, new ISBN" model... or have the "anniversary edition" with identical text but new blurb be a new edition...
...it's insane.
There do exist such reference services for crosslinking. They're patchy, they're sometimes available and sometimes not, and they're going to be subjective* and incomplete for the forseeable future. I would *love* to see what Open Library can do with this, or suggestions for how we can help**.
OCLC will link together different printings, and in many cases even editions.
The is a reason for ISBN multiplicity: they are in origin a device invented by booksellers for managing their inventory, and subsequently adopted by libraries as a practical matter of convenience, as described in detail in the WP article. From the point of view of a book dealer, obviously each separate packaging is distinct--and we can hardly expect they will ever think otherwise.
From the point of view of a library, the numbers for different
printings of the same edition need to be linked, since except for rare books libraries do not catalog separate printings individually. OCLC does a fairly good job at this, though it does not get them all. Libraries consider such matter as paperback/hardcover, and thumb indexed, and so forth as printings, no matter whether publishers call them editions. Typically publication in different countries amounts to different editions, though--they are not always they same. The actual rules for this are complicated, legalistic, and change from time to time, as they need to deal with all the different situations publishers have deliberately devised or accidentally perpetrated.
The linking of different true editions is a little more complicated. Libraries do list them separately.. Library cataloging has various devices for bringing them together, and OCLC and other library catalogs generally do a fairly sophisticated job of this. Related works are also brought together; the details are again quite technical, but the bases are what we call a "uniform title" and the concept of a "work". The intention is to provide for any useful level of aggregation.
You'll see it in action if you look for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in any library catalog. And in a large library you'll see it for Great Expectations too, for there are translations into other languages.
There is no need for WP to figure this all out internally.
On 9/19/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Typically, sellers of new books will only show the ISBNs of current editions. Books that have a new edition each year will have a long range of ISBNs and will distinguish hard and soft cover, or even whether there are thumb tabs in the fore edge. I very much agree with the usefulness of a reference work that would sort out the different editions.
Of course, for the average English-language work, you have the US edition, and the UK edition, and possibly an Australian or Canadian edition... and hard and softcover in both... and people have started giving ISBNs to some reprintings, or work on a "new cover art, new ISBN" model... or have the "anniversary edition" with identical text but new blurb be a new edition...
...it's insane.
There do exist such reference services for crosslinking. They're patchy, they're sometimes available and sometimes not, and they're going to be subjective* and incomplete for the forseeable future. I would *love* to see what Open Library can do with this, or suggestions for how we can help**.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
- Yes, subjective. Boundaries are fuzzy. Great Expectations with two
different editors is the same work. Is 20,000 Leagues with two different editor-cum-translators the same work? ** One of the best ways we can help is to do the spadework. Writing an article about a book? Do the research and give us a comprehensive history of its editions, with publications dates and annotations and ISBNs where they exist. Our article is better, and we have the raw material to feed an ISBN resolver in the future.
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David Goodman wrote:
OCLC will link together different printings, and in many cases even editions.
[...] There is no need for WP to figure this all out internally.
To my knowledge, though, the OCLC database itself is proprietary and available only to subscribing institutions, which somewhat complicates using it for our purposes, especially if Wikimedia's sites and their dependencies are to remain free-software/open-content. Is there some reasonable way around that?
-Mark
Try worldcat.org -- a free version of the WorldCat database (OCLC's product) called Open WorldCat. We can't import the data per se, but I would happily link to WorldCat record for an item at the end of a reference, as a happy alternative to linking to individual libraries or commercial sites. You can also search worldcat.org with an ISBN, via the special:booksources tool in WP. Worldcat makes an effort to link to various and sundry editions of works, etc., so it's probably the best and most global solution right now for answering the questions: "when and in what editions was this printed"? and "where can I get it"?
Also, the open library project (with a demo at demo.openlibrary.org) is working on the problem of providing free catalog data for all the works in the world; they are very much in line with our mission, but are just getting started.
Regarding JSTOR: PLEASE provide the full citation of any journal article or book used, no matter what else you do (author, title, date of publication, full journal title, etc). That information is needed for someone else somewhere else in the world to get the article, and a standardized citation link that is the best thing we have to a historical record for the article. In addition to that, I have no problem adding a small link to JSTOR at the end of the record -- it is a standard archive, even if not everyone has access to it. Just don't rely *solely* on the JSTOR link as being a good reference, especially since it's not free (as in beer or speech). The same goes for a link to any other online version -- the vast majority of academic magazines and journals (and even now popular press) that have online archives do not provide those archives freely -- instead, libraries pay for them for their subscribers. Many of the journals in JSTOR, however, have no other online version.
Regarding "free" sources versus not-free sources -- the open access movement is growing, but is still small compared to the wealth of academic research printed up over the last decades. I would say it's a false dichotomy -- yes, we should link to free (as in speech or beer) resources whenever we can, but we should also link to the best possible non-free academic research we can. There's room for both, and as Wikipedia grows to become a truly valuable researching tool I hope that good bibliographies will become a strength.
-- phoebe (another librarian)
On 9/20/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
David Goodman wrote:
OCLC will link together different printings, and in many cases even
editions.
[...] There is no need for WP to figure this all out internally.
To my knowledge, though, the OCLC database itself is proprietary and available only to subscribing institutions, which somewhat complicates using it for our purposes, especially if Wikimedia's sites and their dependencies are to remain free-software/open-content. Is there some reasonable way around that?
-Mark
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On 19/09/2007, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
OCLC will link together different printings, and in many cases even editions.
...if you pay them for it. xISBN went to being a paid-for service sometime earlier this year; there's a "free allocation" for nonprofit orgs, but if we begin using it on any real scale we'll get locked out. Which is fair enough, OCLC never saw a revenue stream they didn't like to leap on, but less than helpful.
thingISBN is free - and I believe Tim Spalding intends to keep it that way - but the coverage is (currently) smaller, and less validated. It remains to be seen what else appears, but there's definitely some aggregator-aggregating to be done!
(...)
It is true that there are perfectly good and sensible reasons for ISBNs being a quasi-edition based system, but the point remains that *for our purposes* it's very much a mess. Nothing is less helpful than giving "the ISBN" for a book; it implies accuracy and completeness whilst providing only partial information. In most cases - in almost all cases - we want to refer to a work as a whole, not an edition-level manifestation of it. So how do we enable the Wikipedia/MediaWiki internal ISBN lookup system to do that?
The linking of different true editions is a little more complicated. Libraries do list them separately.. Library cataloging has various devices for bringing them together,
I am a cataloguer too, you know ;-)
and OCLC and other library catalogs generally do a fairly sophisticated job of this. Related works are also brought together; the details are again quite technical, but the bases are what we call a "uniform title" and the concept of a "work". The intention is to provide for any useful level of aggregation.
Work aggregation across editions is common and sophisticated? We have a hundred hacks for it, but I would hesitate to consider it good.
You'll see it in action if you look for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in any library catalog. And in a large library you'll see it for Great Expectations too, for there are translations into other languages.
There is no need for WP to figure this all out internally.
Yes, there is, to a large degree. If we want to make real use of this ISBN-lookup trickery as a way of getting our readers and editors to be able to find works, we need to find some way of doing the ISBN lookup and alternates on our end, rather than faintly hoping whatever catalogue we link out to can manage it.
Without that, [[special:booksources]] is really just a neat little toy. It could be so much more. We don't need to code a new xISBN; we do need to adopt that kind of functionality without becoming dependent on an external resource.
If someone links to a standard widely held edition, as people should, WorldCat (=OCLC, in this context) by itself is enough of a guide--I think people know generally that there are multiple editions of things and to look around. But I imagine the problem that you are considering is how to handle it when someone links to something weird. I am not sure it can be automatic altogether--If I link to the record for the original first folio, an I linking to it because I simply want to refer to an edition of the plays, or to the first folio in general, as available in reprint and facsimile, or because I actually want to make a record to the original printing of that edition?
On 9/20/07, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 19/09/2007, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
OCLC will link together different printings, and in many cases even editions.
...if you pay them for it. xISBN went to being a paid-for service sometime earlier this year; there's a "free allocation" for nonprofit orgs, but if we begin using it on any real scale we'll get locked out. Which is fair enough, OCLC never saw a revenue stream they didn't like to leap on, but less than helpful.
thingISBN is free - and I believe Tim Spalding intends to keep it that way - but the coverage is (currently) smaller, and less validated. It remains to be seen what else appears, but there's definitely some aggregator-aggregating to be done!
(...)
It is true that there are perfectly good and sensible reasons for ISBNs being a quasi-edition based system, but the point remains that *for our purposes* it's very much a mess. Nothing is less helpful than giving "the ISBN" for a book; it implies accuracy and completeness whilst providing only partial information. In most cases - in almost all cases - we want to refer to a work as a whole, not an edition-level manifestation of it. So how do we enable the Wikipedia/MediaWiki internal ISBN lookup system to do that?
The linking of different true editions is a little more complicated. Libraries do list them separately.. Library cataloging has various devices for bringing them together,
I am a cataloguer too, you know ;-)
and OCLC and other library catalogs generally do a fairly sophisticated job of this. Related works are also brought together; the details are again quite technical, but the bases are what we call a "uniform title" and the concept of a "work". The intention is to provide for any useful level of aggregation.
Work aggregation across editions is common and sophisticated? We have a hundred hacks for it, but I would hesitate to consider it good.
You'll see it in action if you look for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in any library catalog. And in a large library you'll see it for Great Expectations too, for there are translations into other languages.
There is no need for WP to figure this all out internally.
Yes, there is, to a large degree. If we want to make real use of this ISBN-lookup trickery as a way of getting our readers and editors to be able to find works, we need to find some way of doing the ISBN lookup and alternates on our end, rather than faintly hoping whatever catalogue we link out to can manage it.
Without that, [[special:booksources]] is really just a neat little toy. It could be so much more. We don't need to code a new xISBN; we do need to adopt that kind of functionality without becoming dependent on an external resource.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
On 9/12/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/09/2007, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
I don't understand why we're promoting JSTOR, rather than linking to the journal directly?
JSTOR's main value (as far as I'm aware; I've never had to use it) is for its vast archives of older material, not for contemporary scientific literature; "linking to the journal" is pretty futile for, say, 1930s economics. It's not quite the same situation as, say, the Springer databases.
Additionally, it is often the case that an institution will have a subscription to JSTOR but not necessarily the case that they will be subscribing to the individual journal separately.
Also, while JSTOR does cost for subscription, it is not quite a for-profit as it has been made out here -- it is not-for-profit.
That being said, I don't see any reason to link to it or to not. Those with JSTOR access know that they can use it to search for articles. Those without it probably don't care. The way my university's authentication system is set up -- and I don't know if this is atypical or not -- clicking links doesn't get you into the system anyway; you have to go in via a different link provided by the university.
In any case, obviously we can't provide "free references" for anything, but as has been noted, we can always cite fully, and if people have doubts those with JSTOR access can easily verify.
FF
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.)
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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
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.)
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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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On 9/11/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com 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.)
Johnleemk
John is right. The reason for having references is so that people can use them, either to verify information in the article, or to learn more about the topic. Stripping a link out just because it's a pay link means that people who do have access to JSTOR or online journals can't get access to them.
It isn't an either-or situation. If there's a choice between linking to a version on JSTOR and a version that's freely available, then definitely, go with the free version (although, of course, "free" versions might be things that people have uploaded without permission, which means they are likely to disappear). But if the choice is between JSTOR and no link, then it's better to provide a link available to SOME people, rather than no link at all. Of course, it may be preferable to link to a freely available abstract, rather than JSTOR (which, sadly, does not allow ANY access to people who are not subscribed).
It isn't true, by the way, to say that JSTOR access is available only from libraries. In my experience, it's available to any computer with a campus IP, and often to people associated with the universities who are not physically on campus (for example, if I log in to the library's web page I can access JSTOR articles from wherever I am).
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a change in {{Cite journal}} to allow a separate link to the abstract (if, for example, a free abstract is available is one place, and a non-free full-text version is available elsewhere.
Saying that we should only link to free content is taking the idea of free content too far. Wikipedia's use of free content is utilitarian, not ideological. Ideological attraction to free content is great, but that has nothing to do with our mission to write an encyclopaedia.
Guettarda wrote:
On 9/11/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com 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.)
Johnleemk
John is right. The reason for having references is so that people can use them, either to verify information in the article, or to learn more about the topic. Stripping a link out just because it's a pay link means that people who do have access to JSTOR or online journals can't get access to them.
It isn't an either-or situation. If there's a choice between linking to a version on JSTOR and a version that's freely available, then definitely, go with the free version (although, of course, "free" versions might be things that people have uploaded without permission, which means they are likely to disappear). But if the choice is between JSTOR and no link, then it's better to provide a link available to SOME people, rather than no link at all. Of course, it may be preferable to link to a freely available abstract, rather than JSTOR (which, sadly, does not allow ANY access to people who are not subscribed).
It isn't true, by the way, to say that JSTOR access is available only from libraries. In my experience, it's available to any computer with a campus IP, and often to people associated with the universities who are not physically on campus (for example, if I log in to the library's web page I can access JSTOR articles from wherever I am).
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a change in {{Cite journal}} to allow a separate link to the abstract (if, for example, a free abstract is available is one place, and a non-free full-text version is available elsewhere.
Saying that we should only link to free content is taking the idea of free content too far. Wikipedia's use of free content is utilitarian, not ideological. Ideological attraction to free content is great, but that has nothing to do with our mission to write an encyclopaedia. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Our "free" is libre, not gratis (though of course Wikipedia itself is also available free of charge). That does not mean, however, that all the content we link to or reference must be either gratis or libre.
The JSTOR links are convenience links. The actual reference should always be to the actual journal article in the published journal, and this can be used by any school or public library as information for interlibrary loan. The online link to an non-profit but paid service serves two purposes: first, it is not correct that nothing is visible; the abstracts or first paragraphs are generally available free (see for example http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-049X%281926%2965%3A2%3C105%3ATPGSWT%3E... from the article on the american Civil War.) Second, they at least work for those whose libraries have access (the exact titles that a library has access to depends upon what they pay, but many public as well as almost all academic libraries have at least a portion of the titles).
This is similar to other commercial online services. What is wrong and should be changed are links giving only information about availability of JSTOR, project MUSE, Proquest, Ebsco, Lexis, FindArticles, etc. None of these are references, they are just suppliers. What is also wrong is linking the word "JSTOR" in the external reference link to the WP article--this is excessive emphasis. There are a few thousand of these, and they all should be deleted. I'll be glad to discuss details if someone wants to write a bot.
There is also information of Wikipedia on how to obtain free copies of articles from legal sources, including those WPedians with legitimate access--I do not give a link because the pages are under discussion for a merge.
On 9/12/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
On 9/11/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com 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.)
Johnleemk
John is right. The reason for having references is so that people can use them, either to verify information in the article, or to learn more about the topic. Stripping a link out just because it's a pay link means that people who do have access to JSTOR or online journals can't get access to them.
It isn't an either-or situation. If there's a choice between linking to a version on JSTOR and a version that's freely available, then definitely, go with the free version (although, of course, "free" versions might be things that people have uploaded without permission, which means they are likely to disappear). But if the choice is between JSTOR and no link, then it's better to provide a link available to SOME people, rather than no link at all. Of course, it may be preferable to link to a freely available abstract, rather than JSTOR (which, sadly, does not allow ANY access to people who are not subscribed).
It isn't true, by the way, to say that JSTOR access is available only from libraries. In my experience, it's available to any computer with a campus IP, and often to people associated with the universities who are not physically on campus (for example, if I log in to the library's web page I can access JSTOR articles from wherever I am).
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a change in {{Cite journal}} to allow a separate link to the abstract (if, for example, a free abstract is available is one place, and a non-free full-text version is available elsewhere.
Saying that we should only link to free content is taking the idea of free content too far. Wikipedia's use of free content is utilitarian, not ideological. Ideological attraction to free content is great, but that has nothing to do with our mission to write an encyclopaedia. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Our "free" is libre, not gratis (though of course Wikipedia itself is also available free of charge). That does not mean, however, that all the content we link to or reference must be either gratis or libre.
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On 9/11/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Our "free" is libre, not gratis (though of course Wikipedia itself is also available free of charge). That does not mean, however, that all the content we link to or reference must be either gratis or libre.
You're the second person to point this out in this thread, but as a point of order, I feel compelled to point out that free-libre almost certainly requires free-gratis as well. The fact that JSTOR is a paid resource subsequently means that it's not a free-libre resource.
--Darkwind
On 9/12/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/11/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Our "free" is libre, not gratis (though of course Wikipedia itself is also available free of charge). That does not mean, however, that all the content we link to or reference must be either gratis or libre.
You're the second person to point this out in this thread, but as a point of order, I feel compelled to point out that free-libre almost certainly requires free-gratis as well. The fact that JSTOR is a paid resource subsequently means that it's not a free-libre resource.
Free-libre and free-gratis have nothing to do with each other. You can charge for "free" software and "free" content. That is not in itself a big deal.
JSTOR is not specifically free-libre either, though -- individual copyrights, where they are still in force, are held by the individual journals, and JSTOR's terms of use implies that you will not re-distribute JSTOR content even if it is out of copyright.
That being said, as was noted Wikipedia's dually free status does not mean that we link to free (in either sense) content. So the point is really moot as far as I can tell.
FF
On 9/11/07, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/11/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
<snipped> It isn't an either-or situation. If there's a choice between linking to a version on JSTOR and a version that's freely available, then definitely, go with the free version (although, of course, "free" versions might be things that people have uploaded without permission, which means they are likely to disappear). But if the choice is between JSTOR and no link, then it's better to provide a link available to SOME people, rather than no link at all. Of course, it may be preferable to link to a freely available abstract, rather than JSTOR (which, sadly, does not allow ANY access to people who are not subscribed).
It isn't true, by the way, to say that JSTOR access is available only from libraries. In my experience, it's available to any computer with a campus IP, and often to people associated with the universities who are not physically on campus (for example, if I log in to the library's web page I can access JSTOR articles from wherever I am).
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a change in {{Cite journal}} to allow a separate link to the abstract (if, for example, a free abstract is available is one place, and a non-free full-text version is available elsewhere.
Incidentally... that campus access is almost certainly a service brought to you and paid for by your library. Academic libraries sign licensing agreements with major publishers such as JSTOR asking for IP access, so that people with a campus IP or who can get to one via a proxy server or VPN or similar can access library content. It's almost always a headache to negotiate those contracts, so if you like the service you should tell your librarians so :)
Re: abstracts; a link would be great; though if you have campus access it is sometimes difficult to tell what is visible because a library's paid for it and what is truly free.
-- phoebe
From: daniwo59@aol.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] JSTOR and free external links Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 22:44:42 EDT
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 people 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.
Danny
I have to put my hand up here: I frequently link to [[Grove Music Online]], my main reference source for opera/classical music related material.
While it would be possible (if more difficult) to cite the print version instead (and this is done by those using the print version) part of the reason why I cite Grove Online is because the articles online are often slightly different from the print version, and some articles online, particularly those related to contemporary singers, are not the in the print version at all (annoyingly, it's these articles that tend to be lower quality anyway. Sigh).
FYI, Grove Online have their own citing format they insist on, which we replicate at [[Template:GroveOnline]].
While linking to sites viewable only to those who pay is not preferable, sometimes it is necessary. Any changes here need to be thought through.
Best,
C More schi
_________________________________________________________________ A place for moms to take a break! http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us
Christiano Moreschi wrote:
I have to put my hand up here: I frequently link to [[Grove Music Online]], my main reference source for opera/classical music related material.
While it would be possible (if more difficult) to cite the print version instead (and this is done by those using the print version) part of the reason why I cite Grove Online is because the articles online are often slightly different from the print version, and some articles online, particularly those related to contemporary singers, are not the in the print version at all (annoyingly, it's these articles that tend to be lower quality anyway. Sigh).
I agree that's the case with Grove Music Online, and several other major sources, but in the specific case of JSTOR the online articles are literally scans of the print version, so citing the print version should be fine, since you're just reading the equivalent to a photocopied journal article. And people who have JSTOR access know how to look things up on it anyway, so the link isn't all that helpful (even many of us who have JSTOR access can't follow the links anyway, due to the way its login works).
-Mark