BA and JSTOR sign an agreement
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Alexandria, 12 September 2005—The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) has recently signed a three-year agreement with JSTOR, a New York-based archive of scholarly journal literature, to provide access to the back runs (non-current issues) of scholarly journals in sciences, humanities and social sciences.
With this agreement, BA visitors will be given online access to the complete back runs of more than 500 of the most influential academic journals in about 42 disciplines from the very first issue of each journal, through issues published 2-5 years ago.
“We are proud that the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has become part of the JSTOR participant community,” said Jason Phillips, JSTOR’s Associate Director for International Library Relations. “Scholars and visitors to this great library will now have access to this important resource of scholarly journal literature.”
“JSTOR is a very real contribution to bridging the digital divide. The BA is delighted to be able to make JSTOR available to its patrons,” said Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
The entire JSTOR archive today consists of nearly 3 million online articles in more than 18 million pages, covering a wide range of topics including African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, art and art history, architecture, ecology, finance, education, feminist studies, film studies, literature, mathematics, philosophy, population studies, science, Slavic studies, sociology and statistics.
One of the big strengths of JSTOR, is the availability of a replica of the original print counterparts, made possible through top quality images. This conserves the spirit and the look of the original print journals for people who strongly prefer the print layout.
Over the past year, the BA has witnessed a remarkable increase in the usage of its online collections, indicating the high appreciation towards scholarly content brought via new technology. It aims to further support quality research and education through the extension of its collection of online scholarly collections.