JSTOR Journal Project Discussion
I am opening up discussion of the JSTOR Journal Project. If you did not receive the email about this project, please contact me. A list of the Science Library's JSTOR journals is available at http://odtaa.wlu.edu/periodicals/JSTORListAll.asp thanks to the hard work of Cindy Morton and Wendy Richards. This list includes the titles' links in the Annie catalog, coverage in JSTOR, coverage in other electronic formats, and coverage in print. If we are able to discard these volumes, we could save well over 200 feet in shelf space. That gives us room for growth of our other periodical titles that are not available in JSTOR and for new subscriptions.
Original email:
Dear Science faculty,Many of you have heard of, or perhaps observed for yourself, the space issue in the Science Library. A healthy library is one that has plenty of room for growth, and we are quickly running out of room. This problem is especially serious in the bound periodicals section on Upper Level 4. The lack of shelf space on this floor will soon make it impossible to acquire new periodical titles as well as continue to receive our current subscriptions.
However, there is a solution that will save shelf space while continuing our current subscriptions. JSTOR, an online journal archive, has the made the back issues of many journals available in a high quality electronic format. Most of these journals have the electronic archive available from the start of publication.
To save shelf space, a logical solution is to discard these print volumes in favor of the electronic archive that JSTOR provides. We will still keep the print version of these titles for five years, since they are not archived in JSTOR until five years after publication. (Read more about JSTOR's "moving wall" at http://www.jstor.org/about/movingwall.html.) This means that you will still be able to come to the library and read the latest print issue of your favorite journals as always, and direct students to these journals as well. The Annie catalog and the Periodical Finder both reflect our electronic access to these journals, so access to the archives are just a few clicks away. As many of you know, JSTOR has an excellent interface for locating volumes and/or issues of journals and locating particular articles within that volume/issue.
A list of the Science Library's JSTOR journals is available at http://odtaa.wlu.edu/periodicals/JSTORListAll.asp thanks to the hard work of Cindy Morton and Wendy Richards. This list includes the titles' links in the Annie catalog, coverage in JSTOR, coverage in other electronic formats, and coverage in print. If we are able to discard these volumes, we could save well over 200 feet in shelf space. That gives us room for growth of our other periodical titles that are not available in JSTOR and for new subscriptions.
Please take a look at this list. I will open a discussion on the Science Library Updates blog so that you may comment and ask questions about this project. I would like to address everyone's concerns before embarking on this project, but I believe it will be a solution that everyone will feel confident in.
Sincerely,
Mary Abdoney
Comments
This is inevtiable and something we need to embrace. However, I did notice the lack of chemsitry titles on the JSTOR list. Why is that?
Posted by: Steve Desjardins | April 25, 2006 7:53 AM
Steve - JSTOR only archives select titles in certain disciplines. Chemistry just happens to be a discipline that isn't very well represented in JSTOR, probably because most chemistry journals are published by ACS. The chemistry titles owned by W&L will not be touched during the JSTOR project this summer. (Also, W&L is one of the founding members of JSTOR, and we subscribe to all titles that JSTOR offers.)
Posted by: Mary Abdoney | April 25, 2006 8:33 AM
This all sounds pretty reasonable to me. Before you toss out the old, bound copies of various math journals, can you give us a call? I bet some of us in Robinson Hall wouldn't mind having some of them to keep at home or in the office!
Posted by: Greg Dresden | April 26, 2006 2:56 PM
We will certainly let everyone know before tossing out old volumes. We only ask that you wait until we are ready to discard them, since we have to update the catalog.
Posted by: Mary Abdoney | April 26, 2006 2:58 PM
Although psyc has only one journal in the group, the JSTOR Project will have a good effect--go for it.
Posted by: David Elmes | May 1, 2006 12:27 PM
Physics doesn't have much at stake in the JSTOR journals. But for what it's worth, I have been very happy with the PROLA archive, which works in a similar fashion with a moving wall. Online retrieval is faster and easier than flipping through paper, and is a great way to address our space constraints.
Posted by: David Sukow | May 4, 2006 10:27 AM