EBSCO Discovery Service is the first to host JSTOR’s Open Community Collections

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) announces the availability of JSTOR Open Community Collections through EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS). EDS users will gain access to a breadth of freely accessible primary source content including artwork, photographs, publications, recordings, and other artifacts from library collections around the world, strengthening the depth and quality of their research.

Open Community Collections enables institutions to host their special collections on the JSTOR platform, making unique primary source collections discoverable to a large network of researchers, faculty and library users worldwide; universities don’t have to be JSTOR participants to access or contribute to Community Collections. EDS users will benefit from this trove of openly accessible content, introducing them to new avenues of research with seamless access to the information they need. By indexing open access content in EDS, researchers can receive access to comprehensive, reliable content.

Middlebury College Director and Curator, Special Collections & Archives, Rebekah Irwin says, “JSTOR Open Community Collections appeals to Middlebury College mostly because we want digital collections to circulate in JSTOR’s orbit, available wherever our students and faculty discover JSTOR’s trustworthy content.  Middlebury is primarily an undergraduate teaching college, and our students start their research in our ILS discovery service, EBSCO. Having the local collections we share with JSTOR turn up alongside our library holdings fulfills a promise we make to our students that our ILS — as an alternative to Google — can satisfy their research needs.”

EBSCO Information Services Senior Vice President of Research Databases Sara Earley says that JSTOR Open Community Collections is a resource that allows libraries to make valuable content discoverable to researchers worldwide. “EBSCO is committed to providing open access content within the library discovery environment. With this new resource, users can explore important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world.”

ITHAKA Senior Vice President, Open Collections and Infrastructure, Bruce Heterick says, “Libraries and archives house incredibly important special collections to support teaching and research, and are increasingly making them freely accessible on JSTOR so they are easier for students and faculty to find and use. Making these collections discoverable through EDS gives libraries another valuable pathway to connect their users with these distinctive materials.”

Increasing discovery of open library content is directly in line with JSTOR parent non-profit ITHAKA’s mission of improving access to education and knowledge for people around the world, including by making it more affordable. It is particularly important in a post-pandemic world where libraries seek to transition to digital-first collections, and modes of learning are increasingly diverse. Currently, more than 200 institutions are participating in Open Community Collections, and they are sharing more than 1,100 collections that have been accessed by people conducting research at more than 10,300 institutions in more than 230 countries and territories.

EBSCO has made efforts and launched initiatives on the best way to support libraries with open access. One of these efforts is including more open access content in our discovery platform, EDS. EDS employs enhanced search technology that is built upon superior subject indexing and the EBSCO Knowledge Graph. This type of search technology, along with the JSTOR integration, will allow these special collections to relevantly appear alongside other content types a library may subscribe to. The result is increased usage of this open-access content and a deeper understanding of topics through original materials including artwork, photographs, publications, recordings, and other artifacts.

EDS subscribers are encouraged to enable and/or contribute collections to JSTOR.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the preeminent provider of online research content and search technologies serving academic, school and public libraries; healthcare and medical institutions; corporations; and government agencies around the world. From research, acquisition management, subscription services and discovery to clinical decision support and patient care, learning, and research and development, EBSCO provides institutions with access to content and resources to serve the information and workflow needs of their users and organizations. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at www.ebsco.com.

About JSTOR
JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines through a powerful research and teaching platform. As a non-profit, we partner with libraries, museums, and publishers to reduce costs, extend access, and preserve scholarship for the future. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, an organization dedicated to improving access to knowledge and education for people around the world. Learn more at about.jstor.org.

For more information, please contact:

Jessica Holmes
Communications Director
EBSCO Information Services
978-414-0420
jmholmes@ebsco.com

Heidi McGregor
VP, Communications
ITHAKA/JSTOR
914-629-2060
heidi.mcgregor@ithaka.org