More than half a million incarcerated people can now access scholarly materials and texts online via digital library JSTOR’s expansion of its availability in U.S. prisons.
Stacy Burnett
What was once a small effort available to approximately 20 carceral sites has now grown its reach to be available to more than 1,000, said Stacy Burnett, senior product manager for JSTOR’s parent company, ITHAKA. She is also the one leading the JSTOR Access in Prison Initiative.
The initiative – it started in 2007 per the request from the Bard College’s Prison Initiative (BPI) for an offline version of JSTOR – began with the creation of its first offline index, designed to work in a “minimal tech environment.”
Contained in a thumb drive that had to be manually installed and updated, the offline version held a catalogue of 500,000 JSTOR article titles and accompanying short descriptions that learners could peruse. If they found some interesting, they could then make requests to their administrator or librarian for the full text of articles.
“I also don't want to diminish the value of that index,” Burnett said. “This is the first exposure many incarcerated learners have to independent, self-directed research, which is foundational to an immersive, quality college education.”
But with the revival of a way for those in prison to better access higher education, per the Second Chance Pell pilot program in 2015, ITHAKA saw the potential to do more.
“ITHAKA realized that this little, tiny thumb drive may not be enough to support higher education at scale,” Burnett said. “So, they began looking at what JSTOR might be able to provide higher education programming in prison to provide a college experience for incarcerated students that was more commensurate with an educational experience for people on a traditional campus getting their education. Then, COVID happened, technology became more accessible to people inside.”
