JSTOR Announcement: Pre-1923 Content Freely Available

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Free Access to Early Journal Content and Serving “Unaffiliated” Users

September 7, 2011

Dear Library and Publisher Colleagues,

I am writing to share exciting news: today, we are making journal content on JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere, freely available to the public for reading and downloading. This includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing approximately 6% of the total content on JSTOR.

We are taking this step as part of our continuous effort to provide the widest possible access to the content on JSTOR while ensuring the long-term preservation of this important material. To date, we have primarily provided access to people through a growing base of libraries and institutions. In 1995, only ten journals were digitized and available to just a few universities. Today, millions of people from more than 7,000 institutions in 153 countries have access to journals on JSTOR through their universities, colleges, high schools, businesses, research institutions, museums, historical societies, and public libraries.

This constitutes remarkable progress and impact, but there remain many people who are not affiliated with institutions who want access to the knowledge preserved in JSTOR. We have taken a variety of steps over the years to serve them. ...

More here from JSTOR's announcement.