From Chile to China, from El Salvador to Estonia, from Sri Lanka to Slovakia, a wide range of academic institutions, small technical colleges, research institutes, and central banks are finding value in the JSTOR archive. With nearly 500 institutions in 70 countries, international participation continues to be an important focus of our organization. We have worked in partnership with the Foundation community to provide access to JSTOR in Russia, Belarus, Eastern Europe, Greece, and South Africa. We have also worked closely with organizations in the United Kingdom, Israel, Taiwan, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, and Italy, to allow multiple institutions in a particular country to participate in JSTOR.

Institutions have been enthusiastic in their support of JSTOR and in their use of the archive. We have worked hard to try to establish a sense of community among our international participants in various regions, in hopes that communication within the region would increase the value of participation for each of the individual institutions. It has been our previous experience that the potential value of the archive is more fully understood when JSTOR's mission is effectively communicated to participants, when we have the opportunity to explain the potential uses and value of the archive to the library and faculty, and when we are able to facilitate the institutional understanding of how the archive can be incorporated into both the teaching and research processes.

As an example of these community-building efforts, earlier this summer JSTOR traveled to Russia for a series of events in Moscow and St. Petersburg. JSTOR visited several participating libraries in the Moscow area, and convened an "Introduction to JSTOR" event that was hosted by Moscow State University. Some 40 librarians, faculty and students attended the session.

Later that week, JSTOR travelled to St. Petersburg to visit several local participants and to offer a training workshop sponsored as a part of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation grant funds have provided twenty-three universities and institutions in Russia and Belarus with the opportunity to participate in JSTOR's Arts & Sciences I Collection. Over 45 librarians and faculty attended the workshop hosted by European University at St. Petersburg. From the evaluations completed by the participants following each event, these outreach efforts were an overwhelming success.
The creation of a community-building framework - one that will benefit participants in their use of the archive - will continue as our outreach to the international library community expands. It is our hope to use the feedback from our international participants to enhance our collections, our services, and our infrastructure, thus improving the value of the JSTOR archive to scholars, students, and libraries around the world.

Last updated on September 8, 2006