Introduction to JSTOR

What is JSTOR?

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization with a dual mission to create and maintain a trusted archive of important scholarly journals, and to provide and extend access to these journals to the entire academic community. JSTOR's goal is to provide electronic access to back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences.

What do we have access to through JSTOR?

Van Wylen Library has purchased one of JSTOR's databases; the Arts & Sciences I Collection. This database contains 15 major history journals and 102 other journals in 14 additional academic fields including Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Mathematics and Asian Studies. The JSTOR database is unique because the complete backfiles of these core scholarly journals have been digitized , starting with the very first issues, many of which date from the 1800s. Access links are being added to the catalog record in HopeCat for these titles. For a complete list of available titles, click here.

What do the terms "moving wall" and "fixed wall" mean?

JSTOR's agreements with publishers does not include access to the most current issues. The "moving wall" is a fixed period of time ranging, in most cases, from 2 to 5 years, that defines the gap between the most recently published issue of any journal and the date of the most recent issue available in JSTOR. For example, the journal titled, Economic Journal, has a moving wall of 5 years. So presently, JSTOR's holdings for this title are from v.1 (1891) - v.105 (1995). Next year, the issues for 1996 will be added. A journal that has a "fixed wall" means that no more issues will be added to the JSTOR archive. For example, the journal titled, Callaloo, is available in JSTOR for no.1 (1976) - v. 17 (1994) only. The issues for v. 18 (1995) - are available through the database, Project Muse.

Where can current issues be located?

The library currently subscribes to approximately 70 titles in the Arts and Science I Collection. These titles will be checked in by our Serials Department and continue to be housed in Current Periodicals for a year. Then the issues will be moved to the stacks according to the journal's call number and housed there until they become available in the JSTOR archive. If electronic access is available for these current issues, a link has been added to the catalog record in HopeCat. For some titles, the cataloging record will then have two access links; one for the JSTOR archive and one for the current issues.

Connect to JSTOR