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I just heard that JSTOR's has started a "Register and Read" program, which allows the general public to read a limited number of articles.
If you are not fond of JSTOR, however, contact the public libraries near you. I, for example, discovered that my local public libraries have such scholarly databases as Ebscohost and Gale.
Also, Google books is another good place to get scholarly material.
That's great; I used to visit there all the time, but I haven't been able to access it since I graduated.
I going to put this out there for all members whom I know - I am in my final year at university and have a Jstor account and full access. If you don't but want to, send my a private pm and I wil give you my details so that you may use my account to view everything at your pleasure. I feel awfully charitable today.
^ i also have one
Academic publishing really is a dreadful business - the amount of money the publishers and distributers make is obscene. You can find yourself paying £60+ for the majority of new titles. What's also sickening is that the academic who has written the book (or an article in it) usually gets next-to-nothing financially. Publishing companies know that academics need to publish continually to keep their jobs, so there is no incentive to pay them for the work. They also know that all the universities, in order to remain comprehensively stocked, must buy all their books and subscribe to all their journals. It's catch-22, and the publishing industry has the whole bloody academic sector over a barrel.
JSTOR is a valuable resource (if not particularly good in my field), but it's still a money-spinner. I strongly believe that all academic writing should be free to access, and anything academic I publish I am determined to make a free download from my own website. Why should there be such significant financial barriers to the exchange of knowledge? To me it seems so counter-productive.
Open-source publishing also has scholarly potential beyond breaking down financial barriers. Academic books that are now being published online for free access allow readers to comment on specific passages. And you can still maintain the standards of academic publishing (i.e. peer review). Unfortunately there is still the notion that websites have less integrity than journals as sources - which has truth, but it's not inherent to websites themselves.
A few public libraries, luckily, subscribe to JSTOR.