Access for Individuals
JSTOR’s mission is to expand access to scholarly content around the world and to preserve it for future generations. Originally, JSTOR was conceived as a means to address cost and space issues associated with storing large numbers of older bound journals in research libraries. Today, with more than one thousand of the highest-quality academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as monographs and other materials valuable for academic work, interest in JSTOR comes from individuals all over the world, including those who are not affiliated with academic institutions. New to JSTOR? Learn more about us.
In addition to the initiatives listed below, JSTOR is working to expand access for individuals. We expect to move forward with additional access options in the coming months and years, working closely with our publisher partners who own the rights to most of the content preserved and made available through JSTOR.
Find free content on JSTOR:
- Early Journal Content: Free access to nearly 500,000 articles in more than 200 journals!
- New! Register & Read Beta is an experimental program to offer free, read-online access to individual scholars and researchers who register for a MyJSTOR account.
Through a participation institution:
- Public Libraries: more than 50 public libraries and systems in North America, and a small but growing number in other countries offer access to JSTOR. Several of these libraries offer remote access to their patrons.
- Walk-in use at many JSTOR participating institutions: All JSTOR license agreements allow for walk-in use for the public.
- Online access for alumni: Some participating universities and colleges offer online access to JSTOR for alumni.
Through publishers and scholarly societies (fees set by publishers):
- Subscription or member access to some journals: We partner with publishers and scholarly societies to provide access to their journals to their society members and other individuals through what we call our Individual Access Program.
- Single article purchase for some journals: JSTOR enables publishers to sell individual articles to the public through the JSTOR platform.