Well, this is no manifesto (in response to Sergei’s latest–whew!), but I’m happy to celebrate an important development. As you may know, the great treasure trove of KR back issues is now available through JSTOR. (Go to the KR homepage at kenyonreview.org for more info.) And JSTOR has just announced its Developing Nations Initiative. What this means is that JSTOR–and the KR archives–are now available to hundreds of institutions in 64 countries for free, and for low cost in 30 others.
When we first decided, after much research and debate, to allow JSTOR to digitize all our back issues, one concern was access. We wanted to make sure that, regardless of economic resources, most people would be able to access our material. And access to JSTOR is largely through institutional membership. In the US, many institutions of higher education and even public libraries do possess JSTOR membership and therefore anyone within those institutions will have easy access.
Obviously, however, many institutions around the world simply don’t have adequate finances to pay the regular membership rate. So JSTOR now has created this new initiative, which will make not only the KR archive, but hundreds of other journals available to millions more people around the world.
What a great development this is, especially coming now in the midst of so much dour economic news. And it surely reinforces the KR mission–to keep the flame of literature alive.