Participation Information for U.S. Secondary Schools

In the fall of 2000, JSTOR began working closely with a small number of U.S. secondary schools in an effort to address and better understand an increasing number of inquiries regarding access to JSTOR from this community. The JSTOR Secondary School Pilot Project (2000-2002) involved collaborating with teachers and librarians from a core group of sixteen high schools in the country. What we learned over the course of the project proved that there was significant value for JSTOR at the high school level. Working with — and learning to work with — JSTOR content had a very positive impact on student scholarship. The feedback we received clearly indicated that the material was neither too dense nor esoteric for high school curricula, contrary to initial concerns. Teachers and librarians alike consistently remarked how useful it was to have access to peer-reviewed material with both historical depth and interdisciplinary perspectives. In particular, they welcomed the use of JSTOR as a way of guiding students toward substantive online resources. Furthermore, teachers consistently used JSTOR to deepen knowledge of their own areas of research interest. A brief report on the pilot is available for downloading.

We began offering participation in JSTOR to all U.S. secondary schools in late fall 2002. Outreach to this community continues to be important because it is a natural extension of JSTOR's mission to provide access to the archive as broadly as possible. As we proceed, we also hope to share with the community more of what we learn about the value of scholarly journal material in secondary schools. For information regarding which schools currently participate in JSTOR, please view our list of participating secondary schools.

JSTOR Collections

Secondary schools participating in JSTOR will have access to all available JSTOR Collections. Information about each collection may be found at 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. secondary schools to become participating JSTOR institutions. More information is available at Participation Fees and Initiating Participation. Information may also be obtained from the JSTOR New York office:

NOTE: We also invite Secondary Schools outside of the United States to become JSTOR participants. We are interested in learning more about the characteristics and needs in various international secondary school communities, and encourage you to contact us at participation@jstor.org or via our online form.

Last updated on January 2, 2007