Date Published: January 20, 2004
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Author(s): Frederick J Friend
Abstract: The history of one of the world’s first electronic archives for scientific journals.
Partial Text: JSTOR is successful for reasons its founders did not intend. Bill Bowen’s inspired vision was of a solution to libraries’ ever-voracious demands for space to house paper volumes. The idea was that libraries could save space by removing volumes available in electronic format. Few libraries have discarded the volumes digitised in JSTOR, but many libraries without the paper volumes have been able to offer their users access to the important journal runs JSTOR has digitised. Paper holdings have not decreased dramatically, but electronic holdings have increased. So a space-saving service became an access service.
Source:
http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020010