Over the past year JSTOR has received numerous requests for access to the JSTOR database from independent researchers not affiliated with a JSTOR participant institution. In a significantfirst step to provide access to these individuals, JSTOR, in collaboration with nine publishers, has made their journal archives available to publisher organization members and journal subscribers. Some 7,500 scholars are now able to search, browse and print the full-text articles from key journals in their fields, twenty-four hours a day, from any computer in the world with a connection to the Internet.

In the time that JSTOR's Individual Access Program has been available it has proven to have tremendous utility. Since January individual subscribers have viewed nearly 25,000 articles and printed almost 9,000 articles. Michael Jennings, a member of the Ecological Society of America, wrote to ESA in April 2000: "I just used JSTOR again and want the ESA board and staff to know that, as a member, THIS IS REALLY GREAT. Thanks to those who set this up. It is a valuable benefit to me, and I am sure other members too."

Satisfying the needs of researchers is increasingly important for many scholarly associations. "One outgrowth of the online environment has been that scholars are finding new ways to gain access to current research literature and to one another," says Heidi McGregor, JSTOR's Director of Publisher Relations. "Membership organizations need to seek out new ways to enhance the value that they provide to their constituents. Providing access to their journal archives through JSTOR allows them to have a direct beneficial impact on the work of their members, without taking on the risk of building the archive and access tools themselves."

"More than one thousand members of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) have signed up for access to the American Mathematical Monthly," says Donald Albers, Director of Publications and Electronic Services at MAA. "They like it so much that they are clamoring for the addition to JSTOR of our other two journals."

JSTOR's Individual Access Program is designed to allow publishers the flexibility to provide access in a way that best meets their unique needs, while allowing JSTOR to recover its development costs. The majority of publishers participating in the program have implemented a subscription model for charging their affiliate members, enabling them to generate additional revenue. Information about the publishers and journals participating in this program can be found on the JSTOR website at:
www.jstor.org/about/individual.html.

Last updated on September 8, 2006