March 12, 2010
University of Chicago Press Joins Current Scholarship Program
The University of Chicago Press and JSTOR announced today that they will
join forces in the Current Scholarship Program. Scheduled to launch
early next year, the program will bring scholarly content from leading
not-for-profit publishers to a single integrated platform, making its
use more innovative, efficient, and affordable for faculty, students,
librarians and publishers.
The University of Chicago Press, one of the world's oldest and largest
university presses, brings 51 renowned titles to the program, including
many of the most influential publications in the world such as The
American Historical Review, The American Naturalist, the American
Journal of Sociology and the Journal of Political Economy. Both current
and back issues will be accessible on the platform.
First announced last August, the Current Scholarship Program addresses
some of the biggest challenges and inefficiencies in scholarly
communications today. For scholars and educators, the program offers an
improved online work environment that combines new content with complete
journal backfiles. For librarians, the collaboration brings leading
journals from multiple publishers together under one roof, allowing
direct licensing through JSTOR.
"While there have been great advances in ease of use and access to
scholarly content in the last decade, researchers and librarians are now
faced with a multitude of online platforms and interfaces. Navigating
among these silos of content and identifying the authoritative material
requires climbing not one, but many, learning curves. It is still not as
efficient as it should be," said Michael Spinella, JSTOR Managing
Director. "Meanwhile, scholarly publishers are challenged with managing
fast-paced changes in technology and reaching new audiences. We know we
can address some of these issues by working collaboratively and with a
shared sense of purpose."
There are now eleven publishers working together as part of the program,
and that number is rapidly increasing. With the addition of Chicago, the
current issues for at least 150 journals will be available on JSTOR by
2011. This content will be seamlessly integrated with and accessible
alongside the more than 1,100 journals with back issues on JSTOR today
as well as a growing set of primary source materials from libraries and
museums.
More than 6,000 JSTOR library participants worldwide will be able to
license the current journals, either individually or as part of current
issue collections, together with JSTOR back issue collections in a
single transaction. The journals will also continue to be preserved in
Portico, the digital preservation service that, along with JSTOR, is
part of the not-for-profit ITHAKA.
"The University of Chicago Press and JSTOR share a significant mission:
to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard", said Garrett Kiely,
Director of the University of Chicago Press. "The Current Scholarship
Program is the next step in our long-standing relationship and brings
both organizations closer to realizing our goals of improved access to
many of the world's most important publications. We at Chicago are very
excited to be a part of this and will work closely with JSTOR to
continuously improve our offerings to the world's libraries."
The relationship between JSTOR and the University of Chicago Press dates
back to 1996 when the Press became one of the first publishers to store
journal backfiles in the JSTOR digital archive.
"Years ago we worked with The University of Chicago Press to make the
nascent idea of a large-scale archive of digitized historical journals
supported by the scholarly community a reality," commented Spinella. "It
is tremendously exciting to be working together again toward a vision
that we hope will have similar impact and benefit for the academic
community."
For more information about the Current Scholarship Program, see
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/programs/currentScholarship.jsp
JSTOR
JSTOR is a preservation archive and research platform for the academic
community. Through JSTOR, faculty, researchers, and students are able
to discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive of over 1,100 academic journals, as well as conference
proceedings, monographs, and other scholarly content. More than 6,000
libraries and cultural heritage institutions and hundreds of the world's
leading publishers of scholarly literature participate in and support
JSTOR. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping
the academic community use digital technologies to advance scholarship
and teaching in sustainable ways. ITHAKA also includes two additional
services - Ithaka S+R and Portico.
www.jstor.org <http://www.jstor.org/>
www.ithaka.org <http://www.ithaka.org/>
The University of Chicago Press
Founded in 1891, the University of Chicago Press is the largest American
university press. The Journals Division publishes over 50 periodicals
and serials in a wide range of disciplines, including several journals
that were the first scholarly publications in their respective fields.
Online since 1995, the Journals Division has been a pioneer in
electronic publishing, delivering original, peer-reviewed research from
international scholars to a worldwide audience.
www.journals.uchicago.edu <http://www.journals.uchicago.edu>
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Jason E. Phillips
Director, Outreach & Participation Services
JSTOR | Portico
JSTOR (www.jstor.org <http://www.jstor.org/> ), an accessible archive of
more than 1,100 scholarly journals and other content, and Portico
(www.portico.org <http://www.portico.org/> ), a service that preserves
content published in electronic form for future generations, are part of
ITHAKA (www.ithaka.org <http://www.ithaka.org/> ). ITHAKA is a
not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital
technologies to advance scholarship and teaching in sustainable ways.
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials
UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
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