A R T I C L E S 1 3 

JSTOR 

An Update on Content 
by 

Sarah E. Sully 

Abstract 

This article explains the role of JSTOR, which has selected and electronically converted 100 of 
the earliest and most important scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences. Its database 
now contains over 2 million pages and continues to expand. Old files are digitized frQm the first 
issue published. Database usage by both publishers and college/university staff and students is growing 
rapidly, and increases in production capacity are ongoing. JSTOR plans to offer access to the relevant 
fields which libraries prefer rather than encompass a whole cross-disciplinary group. To ensure 
useful and well-rounded titles, experts in the field are consulted to rank the most important files. 
Response to JSTOR's accomplishments to date has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic .. 

JSTOR is a not for profit organization developing a unique 
research database of 100 of the most important scholarly journals 
published in the humanities and social sciences. With thousands 
of users at academic libraries across this country and Canada, 
JSTOR has experienced exponential growth in its short existence. 
We are now expanding our efforts to include journals in the 
sciences, and to offer the collection beyond U.S. institutions of 
higher education. JSTOR has had to break new ground in the areas 
of licensing, business approaches, and technology. As an 
organization creating new methods we receive inquiries concerning 
every aspect of the project, from pricing issues and legal constructs, 
to the nature of email that we receive from users. I am often asked 
to field questions concerning our approach to developing content, 
how we decide to include titles in the JSTOR database, and how 
our efforts in this area are succeeding. The following provides a 
summary of the content side of JSTOR. 

Background 

JSTOR (i.e. JOURNAL STORAGE), was initially a project 
of The Andrew W. Mellon foundation designed to test the 
feasibility of electronic storage of journal back files and their 
delivery to users over the World Wide Web. JSTOR is now an 
independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the 
scholarly community take advantage of advances in information 
technologies. The JSTOR database of scholarly journals currently 
contains more than two million pages from 46 research journals 
in 11 fields, and it is growing. JSTOR's focus is on journal back 
files; every journal included in the database is digitized from the 
first issue published. In order not to put publishers' main source 

of revenue at risk, current issues are not included; there is a 3 to 5 
year delay between the most current issues of each title and the 
issues that appear in the database. In the case of some titles this 
means over 100 years of material is available for full-text searching 
through JSTOR. (A full list of journals now available in the database 
may be found at http://www.jstor.org/abotitlcontent.htrnl). Users 
can conduct full word/phrase searching or can search by author, 
title or keyword. Articles are delivered to the user in the form of 
page images, and can be printed from standard printers at up to 
600 dots-per-inch resolution. 

JSTOR's approach to licensing is a "site license." All faculty, 
staff, and students at a college or university may access the database 
from their desktops, as can walk-ins to the library. The database 
was first offered to academic libraries on January 1, 1997, and 
over 250 libraries in the U.S. and Canada are now participating. 
(A list of participating libraries is available at http://www.jstor.org/ 
aboutlparticipants_na.html.) Use of the database is high and is 
growing at a remarkable pace. Between September and November 
1997 usage increased 340 percent. February 1998 saw our heaviest 
usage to date, with 28,000 articles printed and nearly 90,000 
searches performed - roughly 3,000 per day. Total JSTOR activity 
in February exceeded the previous monthly high by 29 percent. 

Higher education institutions in the United Kingdom now have 
the opportunity to participate in JSTOR through an arrangement 
with the Joint Information Systems Committee, an agency 
representing the four regional higher education funding councils 
of the U.K. government. A mirror site of the database has been 
established at the University of Manchester, and access is provided 
over the government-funded high-speed network known as JANET. 
This exciting development is likely to be followed by mirror sites 
in other locations around the world. 

EDUCATION LIBRARIES VOL. 21 , No. 3 



1 4  A R T I C L E S 

JSTOR Phase I 

Once it was determined that the hypothesis behind 
JSTOR held promise and that academic journal content could 
successfully be delivered to users over the Internet, our next 
step was to develop an economic model that would enable 
JSTOR to survive on its own. The Mellon Foundation was 
not going to subsidize the project indefinitely. We needed to 
define a "product" that libraries could evaluate and that would 
represent good value, with the goal that JSTOR participation 
would save libraries money in the long run. We settled on a 
plan to include 100 titles, and called this set JSTOR Phase I. 
Our target for completion of Phase I is the end of 1999, and 
progress is ahead of schedule. We have signed agreements · 
with 45 publishers for 75 journals in 13 different fields. (The 
list of these titles is available at http://www.jstor.org/about/ 
field.list.html) These include 11 titles in the field of history, 
11 in economics, and 8 in mathematics, political science, 
and population studies. Some of the most recently signed 
titles include Review of Economic Studies, International 
Organization, and Philosophical Quarterly. We will continue 
to fill out the list of titles in Phase I, further developing our 
list of journals in literature, philosophy, and Asian studies. 

Decisions about the titles to include in Phase I have 
been difficult. . When JSTOR began, the idea of digitizing 
100 journals seemed like a huge undertaking. Howe�er, 
limiting ourselves to choosing 100 titles distributed over a 
dozen different fields has proved equally challenging. 
JSTOR's initial test phase consisted of 5 titles in history and 
5 in economics. To grow beyond those ten we undertook a 
study of the important journal titles in core academic fields. 
A series of factors was examined and considered in our 
decisions. These factors included the length of a journal's 
run, which is important for those libraries that will utilize 
JSTOR to help save shelf space, the number of institutional 
subscribers to the title in the U.S., citation impact factor 
data, and finally, rankings from experts in the field. This last 
factor proved to be crucial in making sure that we ended up 
with a well-rounded and useful set of titles in each field. In 
some fields, we invited a small committee to rank the most 
important titles. Philosophy is an example of this approach, 
where we were ably served by a group of 5 scholars who 
helped us to assess the literature of the field and rank the 
important journals. 

Benefits for Publishers 

In pursuing its mission JSTOR takes a system wide 
perspective. We are dedicated to help all participants in the 
scholarly communication process learn and benefit from this 
project. For publishers such benefits include help with a 
transition into electronic publishing. JSTOR foots the entire 

EDUCATION LIBRARIES VOL. 21, No. 3 _ 

cost of converting the journals, including finding a complete run 
and shipping it to our offices, checking the materials for missing 
and torn pages, scanning every published page, keying in new 
indexes for citation data, and seeing the title up and available for 
searching. Once the back files are available in the JSTOR database, 
publishers can utilize them as a platform upon which to build new 
electronic projects. Due to the difficulty of finding and retrieving 
articles in paper or microfilm formats, much of the material in 
JSTOR is presently little used, and is generating little revenue for 
publishers. By increasing their accessibility, the oldest volumes 
of the journals are brought back to life. As usage patterns become 
established, publishers can learn whether there are special articles 
hidden in the back files that are of particular importance to 
researchers. In addition, individual access is possible, allowing 
publishers to provide a new service to members and subscribers. 
For those publishers planning e-current issues, we will work to 
link the back files to the current issues to allow seamless searching 
of the whole run. 

More Production Capacity 

"Keep up the good work. I am amazed at how quickly the 
investment in JSTOR has paid off Our faculty loves it. Their only 
request is (you guessed it) ... More, bigger, faster." -Susan Harris, 
Dean, Salazar Library, Sonoma State University 

One of the most asked questions from JSTOR users is why 
we can't move faster. Every scholar would like to see his/her own 
favorite journal added to the database! We currently run 100,000 
pages a month through our production process. By the end of 1998 
we expect to be digitizing 300,000 pages a month. We are adding 
production space contiguous with our present office in Ann Arbor, 
Michigan and are opening a new production space in Princeton, 
New Jersey. As we near completion of Phase I, we are beginning 
to plan for Phase II, and with these increases in production capacity 
we will strive to meet the needs of scholars not only in the fields 
already represented in the database, but in new fields of study as 
well. 

JSTO R  Phase I I  

As we look ahead to Phase II, we are beginning to ask questions 
about which fields .to include in what order, and how to decide 
which journals to ill'clude in those fields. Much remains unknown, 
but we are certain of a few things. For starters, we will not ask 
libraries to acquire access to 100 titles in a variety of disciplines as 
we did with Phase I. We have learned from talking to librarians 
that being able to obtain journals in the fields that are most relevant 
for a given college or university would be preferable to having to 
license a whole cross-disciplinary group. Therefore, we will 
approach Phase II with a cluster concept, offering libraries access 
to those fields they would most like to have. We will invite input 
from libraries as we try to make decisions about which fields to do 



A R T I C L E S 1 s 

sooner rather than later. Early thoughts include an expanded 
offering in ecology, an interdisciplinary sciences cluster, and a 
cluster around the fields of business/management/finance. 

Our criteria for deciding which titles to include within the 
Phase II clusters will evolve from those used in making decisions 
about Phase I. Furthermore, we will not limit ourselves to 10 or 
12 titles per field. As with Phase I, we will rely on experts in each 
field to provide guidance, ensuring that sufficient depth and breadth 
is present in Phase II to enable meaningful research in the database. 

Conclusion 

Building the JS TOR database continues apace. We will 
continue to add content as long as the demand from scholars, 
librarians, and publishers supports that effort. As the entity that 
has undertaken the electronic conversion of some of the earliest 
and most important scholarly journal literature, we are committed 
to archiving and preserving it for use by future generations of 
scholars. This is a serious responsibility, as is the challenge of 
meeting the high expectations for JSTOR that are emerging in the 
scholarly community. If the e-mail that we receive from scholars 
and students is any indication (following are a few examples), the 
JSTOR database is proving to be a valued and important resource. 
We are pleased to report our progress and the accomplishments of 
our first full year, but there is a lot of work to be done! 

"JSTOR is fantastic! I 'm a senior in biology at Rice University, 
and the three

. 
ecology journals you provide are making my life 

much more pleasant this semester. It's wonderful to see an electronic 
service that provides complete coverage of periodicals, not to 
mention going back more than a couple of years like the CD-ROM 
SCis and such do." -Jennifer Drumond, Student, Rice University 

"I just had the chance to logon to www.jstor.org and found it 
to be a dream site for research. We are all in your organization's 
debt." -Brian Uzzi, Professor, Kellogg Graduate School of 
Management, Northwestern University 

"I just wanted to say that you have a wonderful service. And 
you are updating your sociological section so fast. Your service is 
invaluable. I am so amazed that I am lost for words. All I can say 
is thank you and please keep this service available. I'm a graduate 
student at the University of Texas at Arlington and find this just 
totally amazing. Thanks again." -La Dorna Goff, Student, 
University of Texas at Arlington 

Sarah E. Sully is Director of Publisher Relations and acts as Genetal 
Counsel for JSTOR. She is responsible for all matters relating to 
JSTOR's content and assists with its management. 

EDUCATION LIBRARIES VOL. 21 , No. 3