News: Research Archive JStor Moves Toward Open Access

[Garson O'Toole]

The following article excerpt may particularly interest independent
researchers without academic affiliations.

Technology Review
Research Archive JStor Moves Toward Open Access

A nonprofit organization that holds millions of pieces of academic
work will soon let the public see it for free.
Friday, January 13, 2012
By Brian Bergstein

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/39448/?p1=A2

An organization that maintains a huge database of academic research
plans to soon let the public view some of the trove of information for
free - a big boost for the idea of "open access" to the world's
knowledge.

As part of its new program, which is expected to enter beta mode in
the coming weeks, the JStor service will let anyone view articles from
70 journals after registering with the website. The reader then can
view up to three documents at a time in a "frame" on the site.

There are some limitations. For one thing, the free access won't let
readers download or print the articles; those privileges will still be
reserved for people who buy the articles or are affiliated with
schools and libraries that pay for JStor subscriptions. Second, this
beta program includes just a small portion of the 1,400 academic
journals in JStor's online database.

However, if it works out, JStor says, it could expand the program to
most or nearly all of the database.

(Follow the link above to read more.)

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