1. Fees cover the costs of making the content accessible

The funds provided by libraries and institutions allows us to digitize millions of pages of scholarly content each year, provide reliable 24/7 access to people in 170+ countries, invest in new technologies to support the use of this content, provide outreach and support, pay license fees to content owners, and ensure the preservation of the content.

Fees for JSTOR collections have remained unchanged since 1997, even though additional content is added each year with the “moving wall.” Fees for access vary based on the type and size of institution; many institutions even have free access (see item #4).

2. JSTOR provides free access to millions of images, articles, and books

Our partnerships with libraries and publishers help us make images, articles, books, and other materials discoverable and freely accessible worldwide. We offer a rapidly growing number of Open Access journals and ebooks to read and download; all journal content in JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere–more than 664,000 articles–is freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world; and anyone can register to read online for free 8.5+ million articles from nearly 2,000 journals. Also, open collections from Artstor, Shared Collections from a variety of contributors, and alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals published by Reveal Digital are all freely accessible on JSTOR.

3. JSTOR is widely available to walk-in library users

Every library in our network of more than 10,000 institutions worldwide is authorized to provide access to the content on JSTOR for walk-in users for free. Participating libraries may also use JSTOR for electronic interlibrary loan, providing a way for patrons to gain access even if their local libraries are not JSTOR participants.

4. JSTOR provides free or low-cost access to more than 1,500 institutions in 69 countries

More than 1,500 institutions in Africa and in low-income nations in other continents receive access to JSTOR free of charge or for steeply reduced fees through our JSTOR Access Initiative program. This is made possible through a combination of philanthropic support and the fees paid by libraries in other countries around the world, as well as publishers’ eagerness to support this work. You can read about the history of our work in this area and a discussion of how we moved beyond access to impact.

5. JSTOR supports data and text mining

ITHAKA, JSTOR’s parent organization, offers Constellate, a service that provides text and data analysis capabilities and access to content from JSTOR and other of the world’s most respected databases in an open environment. Constellate, centered on student and researcher success,  serves as a platform for teaching, learning, and performing text analysis.