4 ms·

50k is cheap as hell. UMass Boston had 125,000 JSTOR downloads last year. Let's assume we pay $50k (close enough), that's 40 cents an article. This is cheap as

50k is cheap as hell. UMass Boston had 125,000 JSTOR downloads last year. Let's assume we pay $50k (close enough), that's 40 cents an article. This is cheap as hell compared to other databases that charge more than that for a single search!

_delirium 15y ago
It's further harming the possibilities of being an independent scholar or even reading academic literature outside academia, though, which I think is a significant detriment to academia. I'm not as worried about the $50k a university library has to pay, but if you're an independent scholar for even one year, it becomes clear how harmful to the research community JSTOR is. Journals that used to sell archive access to individuals for, say, $50 or $100 annually, now won't sell you a membership at all, because to save money on hosting they've moved their subscription infrastructure to JSTOR, and JSTOR refuses to sell individual subscriptions. So you end up "stealing" your access; at various times I've gotten my JSTOR access via ssh -D proxies to a friendly grad student. Now I try to return the favor by providing such access to independent scholars where needed. This sort of gaming shouldn't be necessary with a non-profit organization that is supposed to be working in the public interest, though. Hell, public domain journals from the 18th century that were scanned using public grant money are locked up behind a JSTOR paywall!
- bricestacey 15y ago
  I see your point, but you could just as easily walk into your local university, use their network as a guest, and access millions of dollars worth of content for free. Most databases allow you to download PDFs so you can download a bunch of articles and take them home, legally. Proxying through your grad student friends is breaking the law.
  - Homunculiheaded 15y ago
    Even among state universities access to electronic journals for guests is becoming increasingly rare (usually prohibited in the license agreement). Also if you look to much into how scholarly communications works, the idea of charging 50k is insane since that vast majority of the cost of journals are actually paid for by universities in the first place. edit: although I do agree with your point that in with the current state of things the cost per usage of JSTOR is significantly less than most other electronic journal collections
    - hadley 15y ago
      But many state schools let you join the library even if you're not a student. e.g. http://www.lib.iastate.edu/info/6197 http://www.lib.iastate.edu/info/6197 - $20/year for a non-affiliated member.
      - Donald 15y ago
        ISU's extramural borrower card doesn't allow holders remote access to (paid) academic databases.
    - bricestacey 15y ago
      I would be impressed if it's an actual trend that guests were being blocked from accessing licensed content. I work in this field and I can say that almost all databases and journals have IP authentication, generally with the entire campus IP range white listed. If the vendors don't implement that, they generally use password protected accounts. There are some alternatives such as uploading a list of barcodes, Referring URLs (I'm not kidding ProQuest for example allows this), Athens, Shibboleth, and a few others. These, however, are not commonly implemented by libraries because they are not widely adopted by vendors and require additional IT support that libraries simply don't have. Therefore, unless libraries proxy all their users through their proxy servers (They don't for on-campus users. Usually, all links will go through the proxy, but if on campus the proxy will redirect you directly to the database to avoid the overhead), it would be near impossible to enforce the restriction of guests. I would wager that in many of these scenarios, it's all smoke and mirrors, and that access is really there if you know what you're doing (e.g. just visit the vendor site while on-campus without going through the library links).
      - _delirium 15y ago
        I've been at at least one university (a smallish liberal-arts college) that used a separate foo_guest wifi network for guests, which dumped people into an IP range that wasn't in the database-access whitelist (enrolled students and faculty would connect to a different wifi network, using their username/password, that was whitelisted). I agree that that isn't usual practice, though, despite being technically required by some database agreements.
- hadley 15y ago
  Many university libraries allow to you join as a "friend" of the library, which typically costs ~$100/year and gives you full access to all library resources.
  - asciilifeform 15y ago
    Most such libraries will restrict your use in some serious way (compared to what proper campus members get.) For example, the University of Maryland will let you check out books and no more.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  "It's further harming the possibilities of being an independent scholar or even reading academic literature outside academia," And giving it away for free harms the possibilities of being an independent scholar as well. Do you seriously not understand that?

_delirium 15y ago

It's further harming the possibilities of being an independent scholar or even reading academic literature outside academia, though, which I think is a significant detriment to academia. I'm not as worried about the $50k a university library has to pay, but if you're an independent scholar for even one year, it becomes clear how harmful to the research community JSTOR is. Journals that used to sell archive access to individuals for, say, $50 or $100 annually, now won't sell you a membership at all, because to save money on hosting they've moved their subscription infrastructure to JSTOR, and JSTOR refuses to sell individual subscriptions. So you end up "stealing" your access; at various times I've gotten my JSTOR access via ssh -D proxies to a friendly grad student. Now I try to return the favor by providing such access to independent scholars where needed. This sort of gaming shouldn't be necessary with a non-profit organization that is supposed to be working in the public interest, though. Hell, public domain journals from the 18th century that were scanned using public grant money are locked up behind a JSTOR paywall!

bricestacey 15y ago
I see your point, but you could just as easily walk into your local university, use their network as a guest, and access millions of dollars worth of content for free. Most databases allow you to download PDFs so you can download a bunch of articles and take them home, legally. Proxying through your grad student friends is breaking the law.
- Homunculiheaded 15y ago
  Even among state universities access to electronic journals for guests is becoming increasingly rare (usually prohibited in the license agreement). Also if you look to much into how scholarly communications works, the idea of charging 50k is insane since that vast majority of the cost of journals are actually paid for by universities in the first place. edit: although I do agree with your point that in with the current state of things the cost per usage of JSTOR is significantly less than most other electronic journal collections
  - hadley 15y ago
    But many state schools let you join the library even if you're not a student. e.g. http://www.lib.iastate.edu/info/6197 http://www.lib.iastate.edu/info/6197 - $20/year for a non-affiliated member.
    - Donald 15y ago
      ISU's extramural borrower card doesn't allow holders remote access to (paid) academic databases.
  - bricestacey 15y ago
    I would be impressed if it's an actual trend that guests were being blocked from accessing licensed content. I work in this field and I can say that almost all databases and journals have IP authentication, generally with the entire campus IP range white listed. If the vendors don't implement that, they generally use password protected accounts. There are some alternatives such as uploading a list of barcodes, Referring URLs (I'm not kidding ProQuest for example allows this), Athens, Shibboleth, and a few others. These, however, are not commonly implemented by libraries because they are not widely adopted by vendors and require additional IT support that libraries simply don't have. Therefore, unless libraries proxy all their users through their proxy servers (They don't for on-campus users. Usually, all links will go through the proxy, but if on campus the proxy will redirect you directly to the database to avoid the overhead), it would be near impossible to enforce the restriction of guests. I would wager that in many of these scenarios, it's all smoke and mirrors, and that access is really there if you know what you're doing (e.g. just visit the vendor site while on-campus without going through the library links).
    - _delirium 15y ago
      I've been at at least one university (a smallish liberal-arts college) that used a separate foo_guest wifi network for guests, which dumped people into an IP range that wasn't in the database-access whitelist (enrolled students and faculty would connect to a different wifi network, using their username/password, that was whitelisted). I agree that that isn't usual practice, though, despite being technically required by some database agreements.
hadley 15y ago
Many university libraries allow to you join as a "friend" of the library, which typically costs ~$100/year and gives you full access to all library resources.
- asciilifeform 15y ago
  Most such libraries will restrict your use in some serious way (compared to what proper campus members get.) For example, the University of Maryland will let you check out books and no more.
dreamdu5t 15y ago
"It's further harming the possibilities of being an independent scholar or even reading academic literature outside academia," And giving it away for free harms the possibilities of being an independent scholar as well. Do you seriously not understand that?