JSTOR – Bridging the Digital Divide
Tunis, April 30 - The American Information Resource Center recently held a two-hour long workshop with representatives of key public libraries and university institutions based in the large Tunis area to introduce JSTOR, an incredible resource for researchers, students and professionals of different horizons.
The workshop included a Powerpoint presentation given by the IRC Director, Khaled Ben Bouzid, presenting JSTOR’s components, services, and objectives. Mr. Ben Bouzid described membership procedures, benefits offered to members and even made a brief comparison between JSTOR and other online databases offered at the IRC, such as Nexis, Proquest and Gale to highlight the specificities of each and their differences in contents, time coverage and cost.
The African Access Initiative, an initiative that offers free access to JSTOR contents to not-for profit institutions in Africa, was also introduced to encourage participants to benefit from this great offer that will contribute to reduce the digital divide.
At the end of the session, JSTOR promotional materials, folders, pens and memory sticks, were given out to participating librarians who also had the opportunity to ask questions and receive clarifications about JSTOR features.
“JSTOR is a not–for–profit organization dedicated to helping the scholarly community discover, use, and build upon a wide range of intellectual content in a trusted digital archive. Our overarching aims are to preserve a record of scholarship for posterity and to advance research and teaching in cost–effective ways. We operate a research platform that deploys information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. We collaborate with organizations that can help us achieve our objectives and maximize the benefits for the scholarly community.” http://jstor.org