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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Challenges of broadening access to scholarly e-resources in Africa: the JSTOR example |
| Authors: | Masinde, Siro Okoh, Toja |
| Year: | 2011 |
| Periodical: | African Research and Documentation (ISSN 0305-862X) |
| Issue: | 117 |
| Pages: | 49-57 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Africa |
| Subjects: | access to information electronic resources |
| Abstract: | JSTOR is a research platform that helps scholars, researchers and students discover, use and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive of over 1,400 academic journals and other content. It is part of ITHAKA, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community take full advantage of rapidly advancing information and networking technologies. This article gives an overview of JSTOR's main resources before focusing on JSTOR's Africa Access Initiative (AAI). JSTOR's main resources include the Aluka collections, which consist of primary source materials of scholarly value from and about Africa, organized around three initial content areas: plants; African cultural heritage sites and landscapes; and struggles for freedom in Southern Africa. JSTOR also has a substantial offering African Studies journal literature (currently 52 African Studies journals). Since June 2006, as part of the AAI, JSTOR has made all of its collections of archived scholarly journals available at no cost to educational, research, government and non-profit institutions across Africa. The authors describe the progress that has been made in providing African institutions access to JSTOR and analyse usage trends of Africa-based users, comparing those trends with data of user behaviour in other regions of the world. They conclude that internet infrastructure development in terms of bandwidth, cost of internet access, computer availability, reliable electricity, and computer and information literacy are among the most importants factors that influence usage trends in Africa. Bibliogr., note, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
