JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to help academic libraries archive and provide access to academic journals. It currently provides access to over 1,700 academic journals. Libraries pay subscription fees to JSTOR for access to its collection, while individuals can register for limited free access. Computer programmer Aaron Swartz illegally downloaded over 4 million articles from JSTOR's servers in an effort to make scholarly articles more openly accessible, facing federal charges that carried severe penalties. His actions helped spark discussion around open access to scholarly research.

1. JSTOR

2. JSTOR
JSTOR = Journal Storage
Created in 1995
Source: http://about.jstor.org/10things

3. JSTOR
JSTOR is a not-for-profit, founded to help
academic libraries and publishers
Provides access to 1,700 journals
Source: http://about.jstor.org/10things

4. JSTOR
JSTOR costs money
Libraries pay JSTOR for access to
journals
Individuals can also register for limited
access
Source: http://about.jstor.org/10things

5. SHOULD INFORMATION BE FREE?
Open Access Publishers
 Free & immediate availability  Most publishers own the
on the public Internet of rights to the articles in their
those works which scholars journals.
give to the world without  Anyone who wants to read
expectation of payment the articles must pay to
 Permit any user to read, access them.
download, copy, distribute,  Anyone who wants to use the
print, search or link to the articles in any way must
full text of these articles, obtain permission from the
crawl them for indexing… or publisher and is often
use them for any other lawful required to pay an additional
purpose. fee.
Source: Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources
Coalition (SPARC) Source: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/why -oa.shtml http://www.plos.org/about/open -access/

7. AARON
SWARTZ
Aaron Swartz
d o w nl o a d e d 4 .8
m i l li o n s f i l e s
f r o m J S TO R .
He fought
against
ke e p i n g
scholarly
m a te r i al
b e h i n d p ay
walls.
Michael Francis McElroy/The New York Times

8. AARON SWARTZ
 Charged with hacking into MIT to download millions of JSTOR
articles
 Intention to share on P2P sites?
 Settled with JSTOR in June 2011 by returning the materials
 Faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for
 wire fraud,
 computer fraud and
 unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer.
Source: Schwartz, John. ―Open Access Advocate Is Arrested For Huge Download.‖ New York Times. NYTimes.com.
19 Jul. 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.

9. AARON SWARTZ
―It’s like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too
many books out of the library.‖
– David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress
―Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a
crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars.‖
– Carmen Ortiz, US Attorney for the District of
Massachusetts
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/reddit -co-founder-charged-with-data-theft/

10. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html

12. WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
 You are scholars.
 You have the right to know how the academic publishing
process works.
 Information is not free.
 Some journals are open access, but most are not.
 JSTOR is a powerful tool —and now you know what it is.

13. JSTOR