Participation Information for U.S. Public Libraries

Public libraries are an important community to JSTOR both because of their natural extension of JSTOR's mission to provide access to the archive as broadly as possible and because they further serve the needs of scholars who may not be affiliated with JSTOR-participating institutions.

JSTOR Collections

JSTOR has put into place two collections for public libraries: one focusing on the arts and humanities within JSTOR, and the other focusing on the sciences. For more information about available collections, please visit JSTOR Collections for U.S. Public Libraries. Public libraries are welcome to participate in either one or both collections at any time.

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. public libraries to become participating JSTOR institutions. Please see the Archive License Agreement and Participation Fees for information on becoming a participating public library. Information may also be obtained from the JSTOR New York office:

NOTE: While JSTOR's first step is to make access to the participating JSTOR journals available to institutional participants, we are also working with publishers to offer independent researchers access to specific titles. Please see Individual Participation for information about the journals currently available to individuals.

Last updated on January 2, 2007