Participation Information for U.S. Museums

With the introduction of Architecture & Architectural History and Art & Art History journals in JSTOR's Arts & Sciences III Collection in late 2003, and the availability of the ARTstor Digital Library in 2004, JSTOR began exploring ways to improve its outreach to the museum community. Broadening the availability of the scholarly journals preserved in JSTOR within the museum community is a natural extension of our mission.

Effective immediately through March 31, 2006, the museum community will have the opportunity to participate in an "ARTstor/JSTOR bundle" at reduced participation fees. When a museum chooses to license both ARTstor and JSTOR, we will reduce the Archive Capital Fee for both resources by 25%.

JSTOR Collections

We have created a participation methodology for museums that offers access to all content currently available in JSTOR for one set of participation fees. For more information about the JSTOR collections, please visit Currently Available Collections and Journals.

JSTOR's focus is on maintaining a trusted archive. JSTOR does not include current issues of the journals. We believe it is possible to work with publishers in a complementary way that will be to everyone's benefit. In our agreements with publishers we have established a lag period, which we call the moving wall, that defines the point at which the JSTOR archive stops and "current" issues start. The moving wall is a fixed period of time ranging in most cases, from two to five years. As each year passes, another year of content is added to the archive, thus guaranteeing that the archive is being constantly updated. Through the moving wall, JSTOR seeks to avoid jeopardizing publishers' subscriptions and revenue opportunities from current and recent material, while also enabling libraries and researchers to rely on JSTOR as a trusted archive, providing both preservation and access for journals after a reasonable period of time. This balancing of interests among publishers, libraries, and scholars is at the center of our approach to pursuing JSTOR's mission and goals.

Participation Process

We invite all U.S. museums to become participating JSTOR institutions. Please see the Archive License Agreement and Participation Fees for more information on becoming a participating museum. Information may also be obtained from the JSTOR New York office:

Last updated on January 2, 2007