If you’ve heard of or used JSTOR, you’ll want to know about some new features of this resource. If you’re not yet familiar with JSTOR, first a brief description: JSTOR is a digital archive of important scholarly journals spanning many disciplines. The key word here is archive — it’s important to know that JSTOR isn’t a source for current content, nor is it a comprehensive index to publications in any one field. As stated on their site, “JSTOR began as an effort to ease the increasing problems faced by libraries seeking to provide adequate shelf space for the long runs of backfiles of scholarly journals.” So there’s a “moving wall,” usually between 1-5 years, that represents the gap between the most recent issue of a journal in JSTOR and the most recent issue published. This moving wall is determined by the journal publisher. More information about this is available on the JSTOR site.
Here’s a summary of recent enhancements to JSTOR:
- Improved PDF files: Now you can “search” or “find” words within PDFs. The average size of the new PDFs is smaller than before, making downloading and printing easier.
- Search term highlighting: Your search terms are now highlighted in the text of articles you find, so that you can more easily see your terms in the context of the text (this feature can also be turned off).
- JSTOR/ARTstor searching: ARTstor, “a non-profit initiative founded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, provides a repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images and related data.” Now you can search JSTOR and ARTstor content simultaneously.
For more details about these new features, see the March 28, 2007 JSTOR Update.