The Haves and the Have Nots: Access to Computer Data Bases
I was delighted to find this article about those who can and can’t get access to the computer bases of academic articles called JStor. The world is really dividing into haves and have nots where access to information is concerned. Although I am not in a US university, I’m lucky enough to get access to a good bit of it thanks to some creative connections. Posting here, though, I really hesitate to give links that many readers won’t be able to follow. I know setting up these bases is costly. Even so . . .
Thanks for the article, Rachel. Every time I hear the words “not for profit” I smell a rat just like I do when I hear the phrase “win-win situation”. There are winners and there are losers and with JSTOR we are the losers. The people at JSTOR are protecting their big fat salaries and other perks and until someone pays them off somehow they will continue to hold everyone up like institutional bandits. If they need to cover reasonable administrative costs, fine. I am willing to pay. I just don’t want to pay for gold faucets in the JSTOR bathrooms.
Good one rachel. All content in JSTOR should be open access.
Yes, I’ve hit the red light at JSTOR many, many times. Often, I just need a paragraph or two from an article or paper.
JStor, although it´s one of the more comprehensive data bases, is just the tip of the iceberg. Just try going to the catalog of a big American university library–say California, Berkeley, Wisonsin, Minnesota, Texas, to take just some state universities, and look at the list of data bases open to their faculty and students.
Some town library systems in the US plug in to these. Mexican universities are moving to buying them instead of other references.
But my suspicion is that not only is a large proportion of the world’s population (those that have computers, that is, which is another question) not able to access them but they do not even know of their existence.
What that about what you don’t know and what you don’t know you don’t know.
I knew about catalogs at big American universities. Living in Los Angeles quite a few are physically accessible to me.
JSTOR was enticing because I could google at home to find articles, after which JSTOR became frustrating because I could only read abstracts. At least in the States, someone with a computer can find out about these databases and find them rather easily with keyword searches if they’re looking for certain kinds of articles, not “Oprah’s top 10” superfoods.
Speaking of databases, I know that members of the ACA who are based in the U.K. http://www.aascience.org/conference07/overview.php have been trying to create a database accessible to scientists in Algeria.