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.
Path to Open: What Happens When Scholarly Books Become Open?
Join us for a virtual Charleston webinar on Thursday, September 3, 2026, from 11:00 AM–12:00 PM ET.
JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Publishing and Preservation for JSTOR Seeklight
Training for Stewardship Tier 3 participants: Publishing Seeklight collections to JSTOR, preserving with Portico. Part of a quarterly Seeklight training series.
JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Advanced features
Training for Stewardship participants (Tiers 2-3): learn how to build and manage complex relationships with your assets. One of three sessions in a monthly Stewardship training series.
JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Receives Mellon Foundation Digitization Grant
Library Journal highlights JSTOR Stewardship’s new funding initiative for libraries and archives, supporting digitization, AI-assisted processing with JSTOR Seeklight, and broader public access to distinctive collections.
Reflection as direction: Expanding information access for incarcerated people
Elizabeth Lovero reflects on the final convening of the Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People Initiative and the community effort required to turn standards into meaningful access.
Trinity College expands partnership with JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services through charter program
Trinity College is deepening its work with JSTOR Stewardship by joining the charter program, gaining access to JSTOR Seeklight and scaling collections processing with expert oversight.
Philosophy and JSTOR inside an Ohio prison
A visit to Southeastern Correctional Institution gives the JSTOR Access in Prison team a closer look at how learners use JSTOR and how community shapes education inside.
What’s new in JSTOR Stewardship: July 2026
This month’s JSTOR Stewardship update welcomes new participating institutions, highlights newly available collections on JSTOR, and shares recent work from the digital stewardship community. Featured stories include AI-assisted collections processing, expanded access to distinctive materials, and community-led efforts to make digital collections more discoverable.
AI is changing research behaviors: How JSTOR preserves thinking and learning
As AI becomes part of the research process, JSTOR is exploring how to design tools that strengthen critical thinking, support research skills, and keep human judgment at the center of learning.