ALA Midwinter
February 16, 1997
Washington, D.C.
JSTOR staff made brief introductory presentations on JSTOR operations and policies.
Kevin Guthrie
Executive Director
kg@jstor.org
Sarah Sully
General Counsel and Director of Publisher Relations
ss@jstor.org
Kristen Garlock
User Services Coordinator
jstor.librarians@umich.edu
Sherry Piontek
User Services Coordinator
jstor.librarians@umich.edu
Bill Landis
Production Coordinator
blandis@umich.edu
Signed contracts now total 30 subscribers and the 3-year goal is 750 libraries.
JSTOR is working on extracting meaningful statistical information because
they realize that use statistics would help libraries justify JSTOR participation.
JSTOR hopes to influence researchers to use electronic versions by providing
comprehensive backfiles. Pressure from the scholarly community will encourage
libraries to support the expansion of JSTOR.
ILL compromise:
Interlibrary Loan of JSTOR journals in printed form is permitted for two years, during which time detailed ILL statistics will be collected. The expectation is that these records will reassure publishers that most articles are loaned only once. JSTOR sees an opportunity here to create a built-in ILL interface. Most libraries see an ILL provision as an essential component of licenses for electronic material. Future plans and titles in progress are described in detail on the JSTOR web site:
The objective for the immediate future is to deliver a wide range of broadly
useful journal titles.
Phase two will have a disciplinary approach which will attempt to provide
a greater depth of resources in particular fields. In order to be considered
for inclusion in JSTOR, a title must have more than 1000 subscribers to the
print version. Frequency of citation is another important selection criterion,
especially for historically important titles.
Coordination with Project Muse:
JSTOR and Project Muse want to "fix the wall" so that there will be no gap
in coverage in cases where Project Muse is providing current issues and JSTOR
is providing the backfile. If Project Muse should decide to drop an archive,
it will come to JSTOR. A technological handshake between the two systems is
needed in order to link current issues to the backfile.
Of course there is a significant difference in presentation and appearance.
Ideally, searching would be integrated across the two databases so that readers
could retrieve Muse and JSTOR issues together. Cooperation from publishers
will be needed in order to achieve this goal. Integrated access will be available
only to libraries who subscribe to both products.
Publishers and archiving:
Even though some publishers say they will archive their electronic journals, such archiving is likely to be only a deepening of inventory. Most publishers are not interested in maintaining an archive of material for which there is little demand. True archiving means preserving what is NOT economically practical. JSTOR is intended to be a trusted, permanent archive.
Commercial document suppliers:
JSTOR does not plan to make JSTOR journals available to commercial document suppliers.
Display format and printing:
Several members of the group expressed a preference for Adobe PDF format over images. JSTOR is looking into the possibility of packaging the page images as PDF files. Postscript printing over the network is not practical in many libraries because of the need for client software and expensive printers. The PDF format would permit much simpler printing and downloading since the Acrobat Reader is widely installed on workstations and freely available. Adobe PrintMill may perhaps enable server-based printing through Netscape.
Authentication:
JSTOR is investigating mechanisms beyond IP address screening for controlling system access.
Transmission speed:
In order to accelerate Internet delivery, JSTOR is looking at compression alternatives and the creation of mirror sites. The current practice of preloading the next page through a single pixel link makes JSTOR quite usable over a 28.8 dial-up connection.
International coverage:
JSTOR is interested in international content, but is not yet ready to address non-English and especially non-Roman languages.
Frederick Martz
Library Systems Office
Yale University Library
(203) 432-1856
frederick.martz@yale.edu
Bonnie Turner
last updated May 6, 1997
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