Books at JSTOR Grows

[Heidi McGregor <Heidi.McGregor@ithaka.org>]

Of possible interest:

Books at JSTOR Grows, Adding Prominent Academic Publishers
Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and California University Presses To 
Make Scholarly Books Available on JSTOR

March 24, 2011 - New York, NY -   Four prominent academic 
publishers in the United States announced plans today to bring 
their scholarly books online at JSTOR, one of the most well-known 
and widely used scholarly research sites.  These include: 
Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and California University Presses. 
This is the second wave of presses to join the Books at JSTOR 
initiative.  The initial group included Chicago, Minnesota, North 
Carolina, Princeton, and Yale University Presses.

"The digital landscape is taking shape for academic books, and we 
are thrilled to be partnering with a set of publishers that share 
our commitment to disseminating superior scholarship and an 
organization that has a great track record of meeting the needs 
of libraries and researchers," said Alison Mudditt, Director of 
University of California Press.

JSTOR was founded in 1995 and began archiving and bringing online 
the back issues of leading journals in economics and history, 
including The American Economic Review, Econometrica, The 
American Historical Review, and The William and Mary Quarterly, 
among others.  The focus is similar with books.  Publishers are 
being invited to join the initiative based on the relevance of 
their titles to the content on JSTOR and importance of their 
publications to scholars now and in the future - an approach many 
librarians have come to rely on from JSTOR.

"JSTOR has altered the landscape for academic libraries and their 
researchers, offering online access to a great variety of high 
quality scholarship across many disciplines, through a 
well-known, trusted platform. Books at JSTOR should expand the 
range of opportunities for libraries to continue to build 
collections of importance to our users, with confidence in their 
future viability," according to David Magier, Associate 
University Librarian for Collection Development at Princeton 
University.

The press signings announced today, together with the original 
group, will result in more than 15,000 front and back list titles 
being made available at JSTOR. The presses are recognized as 
leaders in a wide range of disciplines including history, 
sociology, the arts, business and economics, and the life 
sciences.

The group also aims to help scholars and students find high 
quality and relevant books right when they need them.  In 
addition to offering the ability to search across journals and 
books, JSTOR includes more than 1 million book reviews and a vast 
number of citations dating back hundreds of years in the 1,400 
journals it makes available. The books will be linked with this 
other content, creating a multitude of pathways through the 
literature. Michael Spinella, JSTOR Managing Director noted, "We 
are eager to expose this network, making it easy for faculty and 
students to find and read books online, contextualize them with 
other content, and gain a fuller and richer perspective on the 
scholarly discussion."

"With JSTOR, we have a unique opportunity for our books to come 
alive as part of a substantive and growing network of scholarly 
literature," added James Jordan, Director of Columbia University 
Press. "We're pleased to be part of an effort that will help 
define how books and journals are used together in the emerging 
scholarly digital environment."

Books will be available at JSTOR in spring 2012 and will be 
preserved in Portico, among the leading digital preservation 
services for the scholarly community. For more information, 
please read about Books at JSTOR<bit.ly/fZbiHP> on the JSTOR 
website.

JSTOR, a part of ITHAKA
Heidi McGregor
VP, Marketing & Communications
heidi.mcgregor@ithaka.org
212-358-6406