Our history
In 1994, the Internet was in its early days, and William G. Bowen—then president of the Mellon Foundation—conceived of JSTOR to solve a growing problem: university and college libraries were running out of space for expanding scholarly collections.
His idea was transformative: convert printed journals into digital form and store them in a shared online archive. This innovation helped reduce storage costs, free up physical space, and vastly improve access to research.
Decades later, JSTOR is a thriving nonprofit working with more than 14,000 libraries, museums, and publishers worldwide. Through our products and services, JSTOR has transformed access to scholarly materials—including journals, books, images and other primary sources—to reach more than 100 million users each year.
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What will the next 30 years bring?
Explore more about JSTOR’s evolution and impact.
Colgate University builds on JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services partnership by joining charter program
Colgate joins JSTOR Stewardship’s Tier 3 charter program, migrating from Islandora to an integrated platform for preservation, discovery, and AI-assisted collections processing with JSTOR Seeklight.
The University of the South (Sewanee) joins JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Tier 3 charter program
Sewanee joins JSTOR Stewardship’s Tier 3 charter program, adopting JSTOR Seeklight and migrating digital collections from DSpace to an integrated platform for preservation, management, and discovery.
JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Project administration
Training for Stewardship participants (Tiers 2-3): create/edit projects, map publishing targets, manage users, and access preservation. One of three sessions in a monthly Stewardship training series.
Collaborating across research and practice to shape AI interfaces
At CHI 2026, researchers and practitioners explored what it means to design AI interfaces responsibly, from supporting scholarly judgment to creating more transparent and human-centered research tools.
How JSTOR supports smarter research workflows
JSTOR helps teaching librarians, faculty, students, and new researchers move from early search to stronger synthesis by bringing together scholarly content, primary sources, images, collections, Workspace, citation tools, and AI-enabled features in one research and teaching platform.
Visual Resources Association
A virtual conference dedicated to the management and use of visual materials, with a focus on digital access, rights, and metadata practices.
Charleston Library Conference
A highly influential event known for candid, cross-sector dialogue on acquisitions, collection strategy, and the evolving scholarly publishing landscape.
PLANNER
An international conference emphasizing strategic approaches to library development, networking, and technology-driven information services.
International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums
A distinctive gathering centered on Indigenous knowledge systems, highlighting community-driven approaches to cultural stewardship and preservation.