JSTOR for college readiness

Prepare students for success in higher education with an affordable solution widely adopted by AP, IB, and other advanced secondary school programs. Students and teachers gain access to trusted academic journals, books, primary sources, and images that support rigorous, college-level learning and research.

Three students walking together across a bright school hallway, carrying books and notebooks, smiling and talking as they leave class.

2,700+

Leading academic journals

2M+

Primary sources across four collections

4,600

Participating secondary schools worldwide

Students build essential college-level research and critical thinking skills

Using JSTOR in high school helps students build the research and analytical skills needed for college-level work:

Two secondary school students in uniforms collaborating on a laptop in a classroom setting, focused on their work and discussing research.
  • Access trusted scholarly resources to conduct in-depth research, a key part of AP and IB curricula
  • Develop independent research and writing skills while learning to locate, evaluate, and cite scholarly sources
  • Strengthen critical thinking and analysis by assessing arguments, interpreting data, and synthesizing sources
  • Engage with professional scholarship across diverse subjects to explore future areas of study
  • Gain a global perspective through access to resources from institutions worldwide

Teachers enrich learning with trusted academic resources and tools

JSTOR supports teachers with trusted academic resources that enrich curricula and make research and teaching more engaging. Educators can:

  • Use our free self-directed and ad-free Research Basics course to help students strengthen essential research skills
  • Stay organized with Workspace, a tool for saving articles, book chapters, and other scholarly materials with notes and citations
  • Incorporate JSTOR Daily articles that connect news and current events to scholarly research—perfect for classroom discussion prompts
  • Draw on the Understanding Series for accessible analyses of widely studied texts, from Shakespeare to Martin Luther King Jr. and Louisa May Alcott
Woman sitting at a desk looking thoughtfully at a computer screen, surrounded by academic materials and JSTOR interface elements labeled “Save to Workspace,” “Show related content,” and “Cite.”

Innovative, cost-effective solutions for student success

Secondary schools can extend their resources by including multiple types of high-quality digital content on JSTOR’s feature-rich, easy-to-use platform. These content types—including journals and primary sources, books, and images—enable students to expand their avenues of research and streamline workflows for academic success.

Journals and primary sources for college-level research

Prepare students for college research with access to the vast majority of JSTOR’s archival journals and primary sources—all at a fraction of the cost. New content is added each year as the moving wall advances, ensuring continuous growth.

  • 2,700+ leading journals across literature, history, biology, mathematics, and more
  • Emerging fields such as sustainability, public health, and international security
  • Millions of primary sources—pamphlets, manuscripts, oral histories, images, and more—to support research and teaching

Affordable academic ebook access

Search and discover ebooks, journal articles, and primary sources in one place with Books at JSTOR. JSTOR’s ebook package offers unlimited access to 93,000+ titles from 115+ publishers—valued at over $18 million—for a modest annual fee.

  • Fully integrated search across books, articles, and primary sources
  • Unlimited simultaneous use for students and teachers
  • Annual fee: $995 (U.S.) with 75% reserved to automatically purchase your most-used titles
  • Perpetual access on JSTOR to your purchased titles each year

Trustworthy images and multimedia to boost visual learning

Strengthen visual literacy with Artstor on JSTOR, featuring over 2 million high-quality images from museums, libraries, and archives—integrated alongside JSTOR’s trusted texts.

  • Interdisciplinary depth across art, history, anthropology, and more
  • Curated and credible images with complete metadata
  • Interactive tools for zooming, comparing, and creating image presentations
  • Ideal for arts, humanities, and social sciences classes—or for building visual analysis skills essential to college success

Empower your students with JSTOR

Join more than 4,600 secondary schools worldwide using JSTOR to prepare students for higher education. With affordable, comprehensive access to scholarly journals, books, primary sources, and images, JSTOR gives schools the tools to inspire inquiry, strengthen research skills, and foster a lifelong love of learning.

The latest from JSTOR

Stay up-to-date on all things JSTOR.

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Event

Reconsidering your digital collections platform: Lessons from MTSU’s move from CONTENTdm to JSTOR Stewardship

Join us for a conversation with Kathleen Schmand (Dean, Walker Library) about Middle Tennessee State University’s move from CONTENTdm to JSTOR Stewardship. Hear how MTSU evaluated its options, worked with JSTOR’s migration team to prepare and move its collections, and what the transition has made possible.

Page 8 of the January 26, 1968, Los Angeles Free Press. The headline reads “Eartha Kitt wins hearts of black people,” above a multi-column article by Hakim A. Jamal. Ads for a printing service, a music group, and moccasins appear along the right side.
Blog

When distinctive collections become part of research

Libraries’ and archives’ collections shared through JSTOR Stewardship can become evidence for research, teaching, and public understanding.

Four book covers appear in a row against a dark red background: Zones of Encuentro: Language and Identities in Northern New Mexico by Lillian Gorman, Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control by Billy Holzberg, Postconflict Utopias: Everyday Survival in Chocó, Colombia by Tania Lizarazo, and Pitfalls of Prestige: Black Women and Literary Recognition by Laura Elizabeth Vrana.
Blog

Nearly 300 books in Path to Open will become open access in 2027

In January 2027, 300 books from Path to Open’s 2024 cohort will become open access on JSTOR. Spanning the arts, humanities, and social sciences, the titles build on the first cohort’s sharp increase in readership after going open.

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Blog

JSTOR Stewardship: A modern foundation

JSTOR rebuilt the infrastructure behind its Digital Stewardship Services while hundreds of institutions continued their work. Learn how this modernization supports accessibility, reliable maintenance, and more flexible ways to organize and connect digital collections.

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Event

JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Project cataloging

Training for Stewardship participants (Tiers 2-3): catalog records, manage media, use linked fields, and organize work. One of three sessions in a monthly Stewardship training series.

Exhibition installation of Tewa Nangeh at the Georgia O’Keeffe museum featuring wall-based artworks across a central wall, flanked by 2 works on perpendicular walls.
Blog

Looking beyond Georgia O’Keeffe: How multidisciplinary research deepens understanding 

An exhibition at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum invites viewers to reconsider O’Keeffe’s New Mexico landscapes through the perspectives of Tewa artists, scholars, and culture bearers. Explore how multidisciplinary research can deepen our understanding of art, place, and colonial history.

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Case study

How Middle Tennessee State University planned its move from CONTENTdm to JSTOR Stewardship

Middle Tennessee State University evaluated seven digital collections platforms before selecting JSTOR Stewardship to replace CONTENTdm. Learn how staff from Walker Library and the Albert Gore Research Center aligned their needs, planned the migration of roughly 30 collections and more than 10,000 items, and are preparing to make distinctive materials easier for researchers to discover.

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In the news

Are Libraries Prepared for the Second Digital Transformation of Distinctive Collections?

In The Scholarly Kitchen, Roger Schonfeld argues that libraries are entering a second digital transformation for distinctive collections, calling on library leaders to build an “activation infrastructure” that connects processing, digitization, and discovery to maximize their collections’ impact.

Slide reading ‘Webinar: Activating distinctive collections From digitization to discovery with JSTOR Stewardship'
Event

Activating distinctive collections: From digitization to discovery with JSTOR Stewardship

Join Roger Schonfeld (JSTOR Stewardship), Jamie Markus (University of Wyoming Libraries), and colleagues from JSTOR to explore how institutions can connect digitization, processing, preservation, and discovery to activate distinctive collections.

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Interested in JSTOR for your secondary school

Connect with our team to explore access options for your institution and discover how JSTOR can support your library’s teaching and research goals.

View image credits from this page
Woman sitting at a desk looking thoughtfully at a computer screen, surrounded by academic materials and JSTOR interface elements labeled “Save to Workspace,” “Show related content,” and “Cite.”

Christine Moll-Murata. State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Amsterdam University Press, 2018.

Jin Nong. Poems on Paintings, Written for Ma Yueguan. 1754. Part of Open: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Artstor. https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.18706184.