Accessing JSTOR site - free??

Subject: Accessing JSTOR site
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 09:43 AM

Hi,

I'm doing some folk origin research and am not able to access the JSTOR site.

It says individuals need to access through participating publishers then lists some publishers.

Why wouldn't they make the info available to anyone? This seems contrary to what the goal of the organization should be.

Anyone have access?

How would I go about gaining access?

Richie

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Goose Gander
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 10:24 AM

Usually, JSTOR is available through institutions such as universities and libraries. I imagine you could purchase a individual subscription, but I'm not sure how you would go about doing this. Best bet would be to find a local college or library that subscribes.

As far as your other question, there's plenty of information available online for no charge, and there's other stuff you have to pay for. JSTOR falls into the second category.

FYI JSTOR is a database of academic journal articles.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 10:36 AM

JSTOR has a lot of good stuff, and I enjoy using the PDF format to see the page as it first appeared.

What is it you're looking for? Do you have citations already? I work at a university library with JSTOR as a resource. If you can't get it at your public library (and you should try there first) then post the citations and I'll see if I can get them and then email the results.

Tell us more!

SRS

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:16 PM

Thanks,

I'll check some libraries in my area. How would I copy the info so I could use it at home?

It seem inconvenient and time consumming.

Why wouldn't JSTOR want the info available to individuals? Is it a money issue (paid subscriptions)?

Richie

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Goose Gander
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:40 PM

You could save articles to disk, or you might try emailing them to yourself as attachments.

Remember that it takes time and money to run a site like JSTOR. Some sites (mudcat.org for example) are run by volunteers, while others have paid staff. There also might be an issue of royalties paid to writers and publications but I'm not sure about that.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:07 PM

Scholarly Journals, because of the limited audiences and costs of publishing, are expensive. Their contents are copyright. Most libraries cannot afford to subscribe to more than a selection of those available, and all institutions are short of shelf space.

JSTOR maintains an archive of many journals and attempts to provide access as widely as possible. Originally it was a project of the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
The Arts and Sciences complement of JSTOR, for example, is some 500 journals, and it is being increased annually.

The library of the small company research group I worked with before retirement spent several thousand dollars a year just for specific journals in my group's specialty. These journals came from many European countries including USSR and some from elsewhere including India and Japan. We supplemented with loans of material from universities and other research groups. If JSTOR had been available then, the company could have shaved thousands off their budget.

JSTOR participating institutions are in all regions of the U. S. and there are members in UK and Ireland.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:16 PM

But the bottom line (that all libraries are fully aware of) is that these sites are run for PROFIT and believe me, they make money hand-over-fist. That's a big problem in academia, the gouging profit-line price of getting the journals (when compared to the gratis labor of the academics who contribute and do peer review for the journals), or in JSTOR's instance, getting access to some really really old stuff. If you're lucky there will be bound periodicals in your library and you can do it the old fashioned way--look up the citation, go to the shelf and find the right year, then walk to the copier and carefully photocopy your article. JSTOR is how you do it in the computer age, but it isn't the only way.

Some places charge a per-use fee for their articles. Newspapers, for example, to access their archives. It might make sense to see if there is a per-use fee for non-affiliated users of JSTOR. But libraries are a good place to start. There are places like netLibrary that have a lot of free content. Project Gutenberg, Bartleby, etc.

SRS

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: shepherdlass
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:26 AM

You could also go down the route of Inter-library loans. Don't know how much it costs (being lucky enough to have an allowance for these at an academic library), but you fill in the details of the journal article you want copied, (NB ensure you state the page numbers you need because they won't do a whole issue), the British Library then photocopies those pages and sends them through to you.

It's very quick and the way I have to go about getting quite a lot of articles because JSTOR's licence with my uni usually doesn't encompass the journals that I need!

It's a shame that knowledge is so difficult to access, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:40 AM

You'd think a foundation with the appropriate funds would be able to take on a project like the JSTOR site that would be freely available to anyone.

This could be done similar to the American Memory site.

Perhaps a foundation might be interested in preserving our musical heritage and making it available to everyone.

Richie

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 10:08 AM

GUEST, Richie: JSTOR is a non-profit organization, but they do not focus on one particular area of research (such as musical heritage), but rather on trying to make a very broad range of material available to researchers. What they do, which is basically to scan hundreds of scholarly publications into an Adobe .pdf database, is very labor intensive, which is expensive. I also doubt that the publishers of these journals allow JSTOR to copy their copywrighted material for free. Somebody has to pay for it, and, yes, it would be nice if a foundation would do it all, but the reality is that the users pay, through taxes, university tuition, and so forth.

There are organizations that specialize in musical archiving of one type or another and, perhaps if you be more specific regarding what you are looking for, there may be someone here who can put you on the track of an archive that would meet your needs.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 08:06 PM

Although it is frustrating not to be able to access hard-to-find material that other people can get at easily through academic institutions and the like, I do find it puzzling that so many people seem to think that they ought to be provided, at no cost or effort to themselves, with even the most obscure information resources.

There are physical libraries, and there are secondhand book dealers. How important is the information to you? Is it important enough to spend a little time, effort and money on, or do you just want it on a plate?

What exactly were you looking for, anyway? Sometimes, rather than railing at institutions for not devoting their (usually very scant) funds to giving you something for nothing, it pays to ask people if they have the information you need. If you ask nicely, you may very well get results. It generally works for me.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 08:30 PM

I called our local university today, and they say that all of the on-line resources, including JSTOR, are available to anyone who wants to come down to their library and use one of the for-public-use computers.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:08 PM

Be thankful for JSTOR. One of the subscribing universities and institutions should be able to provide your needs.
A quick glance shows that ASTOR provides 22 journals with 'music' in their titles; of course others would occasionally have music as subject articles.

For current issues of scholarly journals, Project MUSE provides some 250 online to subscribers. Also non-profit, the service, guided by Johns Hopkins University, must charge. It is hard to conceive of these services ever being provided without charge because of the costs of materials and personnel.
http://muse.jhu.edu
(Accidentally noticed that one journal available from this service, "Callaloo" (African-American writing), currently was carrying a two-part study of Hip-Hop).

There are other such services that restrict themselves to particular fields, e. g. Chemistry and Physics. All charge for their services.

Of course if the U. S., etc. stopped waging pointless wars, perhaps taxpayers money could fund these enterprises rather than armaments and soldiers.
Until that Utopian day, don't expect nothin' fer nothin'.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:37 PM

The wars aren't pointless - the arms manufactures rely on them for their living... if you'll pardon the expression...

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: GUEST,richie
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 10:47 PM

Thanks for the responses,

There is a library a reasonable distance from me that has JSTOR. What has happened recently is I search for something and it takes me to the JSTOR site.

Yes I can spend a few hours going to the library. Then I can go back again and again and again.

That's life.

Richie

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 03:20 AM

Can anybody find a list of libraries and institutions that subscribe to JSTOR? I've wanted to use it to access the Journal of American Folklore, or whatever the exact title is.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 09:56 AM

Joe, go to the JSTOR site. For example CA institutions that subscribe to JSTOR.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 01:57 PM

Joe, JSTOR carries the back issues; if yo want something from the last five years or so, MUSE is a better source.

The Journal of American Folklore says individual subscriptions are now available to JSTOR's holdings of their journal.
http://www.jstor.org/journals/folk.html

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: shepherdlass
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:24 PM

Malcolm, I agree that it's best to ask first and to try to access the actual libraries, but finding good info related to folk music is often a bit more difficult for those of us who live outside of London. For example, up here in Newcastle we've lost our main reference library for a couple of years while they renovate the building. Lovely as the new site will probably be, that means a lot of stuff in storage and inaccessible for quite a bit of time. That's why I thank heaven for inter-library loans!

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:37 PM

"There are physical libraries..."

Just about still. But they are running them down, selling off books left right and centre. Our library service has just cancelled all its magazines or periodicals to save cash. (That's for the libaries in Harlow - pehaps the County Library in the library next to County Hall still has some.)

On the other hand there are lots of computer terminals - but of course the County isn't subscribed to JSTOR.

It's sad how we waste and resrict the amazing opportunities that the new technologies could give us.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:51 PM

Thanks for that list, Art. My steposon is enrolled at Sierra Community College, which is on the list.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 07:51 PM

Art made a good point--I was speaking in general about many journal providers, not just JSTOR, about the profits involved. I honestly didn't go look to see if JSTOR was for-profit or non-profit.

Here is an article about the scholarly publishing problems (written by my boss, the Dean of Libraries at UT Arlington).

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 07:57 PM

I meant only that there are (even now) other routes available aside from internet access; though naturally it will depend on where you live. I myself live in Sheffield, so London isn't a much easier option for me than it is for 'shepherdlass'. It's always worth saying what you are looking for, as I've already said: you'd be surprised at the (relatively) obscure resources that people can get at. If you don't ask, you won't get.

Things can also be picked up from secondhand dealers if you are interested enough to spend some money; the best search facility I know is at  http://www.bookfinder.com/

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: GUEST,Rapaire
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:51 PM

Heck, we don't subscribe to JSTOR. Too expensive for us, and the University about a mile away does subscribe.

Try asking a librarian for what you want. You'd be surprised. Might even find it right there in the library.

I get a real giggle over Google planning to digitize all those libraries. Even IF they can get around the copyright issues, it's going to take a long, long time. A very long, long time. And after that is the indexing.... Try this: go down to your local library (academic or pubic, doesn't matter) and do a keyword catalog search on the word "war". If you want to get fancy, do a Boolean search on "war AND ____". You can do this with either title or subject.

Note how many citations you get.... Now try it with words like "history" "music" "American" "British" and so on.

Yup, that indexing is gonna take a REAL long time.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 11:12 PM

A set of JAFL, 1888-2000- is available from a dealer, through abebooks, for US $5000.
Hurry, Joe, before someone else snaps it up.
But the best source is through a JSTOR subscriber, like the Sierra Coll. you mention.

Rarely do I find the volume offered that has the article I 'must' have. Occasionally a few volumes appear on abebooks, etc, etc., for $10-20, but others are over $100 each.
This journal is not easily found.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 08:37 PM

Well, I'm tempted to join the American Folklore Society for $100 a year, and pay the extra $15 for "Online access to JSTOR's fully-searchable versions of back issues of four of the world's major English-language folklore journals: Folklore, the Journal of American Folklore, the Journal of Folklore Research, and Western Folklore, all for only $15/year (with access to more folklore journals to come!)"

But hey, for that kind of money, shouldn't I get access to EFDSS documents?

Maybe I should cheat and use my stepson's college access....

Seems like there should be a better way.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 09:08 PM

Joe, some other American folklore sites available with JSTOR JAFL subscription, but no furrin.

I find current articles in JAFL too technical.
If you join, download like crazy for a year and quit. I am about to drop out.

I have 2-3 years of the JAFL, I find little to interest me except reviews of new publications and/or CDs.

Last issue, Summer 2010:
Leonard Roberts, The Farmer Lewis Muncy Family and the Magic Circle of the Mountain Marchen.
Kita and Kosmos: The Poetics of Ornamentation in Bosniac and Homeric Epic.
......Competing Therapeutic Goals ........rural Zimbabwe.

Sound-
Croatian Traditional Music Recordings 1990s and 2000s
Video-
A Journey through the Blues: The Son Seals Story.
Exhibit-
Weavings of War.
Books-
Masks and Mumming in the Nordic Area.
etc.

Books worth looking at-
Ruth Crawfoerd Seeger's Worlds
Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues.
Urban Legends: International
Alan Lomax: Selected Writings
Polkabilly (Goose Island Ramblers)
El Narcotraficante: Narcocorridos.........U. S. Mexican Border

There should be another way to find folk books.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 11:24 PM

Good thread to have come back. So much has changed in a few years. For example, it is astonishing how quickly Google managed to scan a whole bunch of books. Katlaughing was recently talking about maybe selling a big old book she has, but she'd like a copy of it. I suggested she check Google Books and because it is so old it is in the public domain and she can download it.

The crisis in publishing periodicals is being met on several fronts. Our university is putting in a digital database of published works from our faculty and staff. They are copies of journal articles that our people wrote, and when they got to the point about assigning all rights to the for-profit journal, they supplied their own sheet that said (more or less) that the rights being assigned to the journal were limited, and the retained the right to keep a copy in our institutional repository. Which is free for anyone to use. Anywhere. It is still relatively early days, we've been talking about writing an article about it, but faculty have been slow to submit works and frankly, the librarians have been slow to make it easier for people to submit stuff. There is some territory to be traversed in the process. But we'll get there.

SRS

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 02:56 AM

Google led me today to an article in the Journal of American Folklore at jstor.org. I expected that was a dead end, since I don't belong to any organization that gives me access to JSTOR.

But wait, things have changed. I can now get free access to read articles at JSTOR - only three articles every fourteen days, but that's not bad. So, this evening I had a wonderful time reading a book-length article titled Negro Folk Tales from the South. (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana), by Arthur Huff Fauset. Fascinating article, and it was free to read.

I didn't figure out how to jump past pages, so I had to click through ninety pages to get what I want. But hey, I got it - and it was fun paging through the rest of the article.

Kudos to JSTOR!!!

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: MartinRyan
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 03:19 AM

Yeah - been using it occasionally over the past few months. Very useful. Up to now, I've had to scrounge access to JSTOR by roundabout means - the new system is more than adequate for my needs, so far.

Regards

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 11:01 AM

Wow - this thread is a blast from the past. Every time it comes back things have changed substantially. Not the cost of periodicals through the for-profit places like Ebsco, they're getting richer. But in seven years Google has made a lot of headway and some agreements have been made so that books that are scanned are sold if they're not in the public domain so they are available and the publisher gets the cash.

The Institutional Repository is moving slowly - convincing faculty to not sign the blanket statement publishers provide (giving all rights to the publisher) and instead signing the SPARC Author Addendum) has been an uphill battle. I think it is a generational thing and hope the up and coming authors know they can do both - get published in the name journals and keep a copy for free use at their institution.

SRS

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 03:59 PM

I was a UK university librarian until recently and the problems in providing e-access to academic journals are huge because publishers have drastically changed their business models to take advantage.

When we used to subscribe to printed journals we owned the back issues forever, whereas subscriptions to current online journals only give access to the back issues for a very limited period unless libraries pay additional fees to access old issues they have already subscribed to. Projects such as JSTOR allow libraries to subscribe to large packages of online back issues for a single ANNUAL fee, but make no mistake, those fees are huge. They charge libraries according to how big your university is and JSTOR alone cost my library tens of thousands of pounds PER YEAR!

Also, publishers don't sell their journals any more, they merely license them and place very strict restrictions on who can have access within the terms of the licence. In most cases, only current staff and students at the subscribing university are licensed and members of the public are explicitly excluded from most licences I ever saw.

So if you have problems getting a library to give you access, it's almost certainly because of publishers having stitched up their subscription licences.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 04:31 PM

It's painful at budget time, really painful.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 10:22 PM

Joe, what is your secret? I have in the past tried to get some access but even today cannot succeed. A few months they had a free period for a couple of weeks (or maybe that was Questia), but I couldn't get much. Maybe its the subject matter I'm interested in...

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 12:53 AM

Hi, John - see if this link will get you into a free membership.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 02:34 AM

JSTOR has two things: modern academic papers, and historic material. As far as I know, the modern academics get no payment if you access their work through JSTOR. And the older material - should work written in the 1900s or the 1960s not be accessible for free?
An unfashionable notion, of course; the where-there's-muck-there's-brass worldview is increasingly central.

Subject: RE: Accessing JSTOR site - free??
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 02:19 AM

Journals prior to 1923 in the U.S and prior to 1890 in the rest of the world can be downloaded free. This is a change in policy as I have downloaded numerous papers last year for free that are not as old as that. Downloading had to be done through a participating library, which meant bringing my laptop into the library and accessing JSTOR through the library's WiFi. However, you can save your wanted citations at home and then go to the library and download all.
While I can understand the need to charge, I think the pricing structure is prohibitive, and they would likely make more money if they set the price at $2 or $3 rather than up to $24 per article. Looks like I'll be reading on line for the more recent stuff.