[WikiEN-l] JSTOR and free external links

[Christiano Moreschi]

>From: daniwo59 at aol.com
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at 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

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