JSTOR is opening access to everyone for their pre-1923 journals in the United States (pre-1870 elsewhere), making them freely accessible to the public. These articles come from more than 200 journals and total close to half a million articles, about 6% of the total JSTOR collection. The content can be re-used for non-commercial purposes. When searching JSTOR, you can limit your search to “only content I can access” in the advanced search. The Early Journal Content will be marked with the word “free”, along with other content that is freely available. A short video tutorial on accessing the content is also available. The content will be released on a rolling basis over the next week.
JSTOR states:
“Our mission involves expanding access to scholarly content as broadly as possible, in ways that are sustainable and consistent with the interests of our publishers who own the rights to the content. We believe that making Early Journal Content freely available is another step in this process of providing access to knowledge to more people; that we are in a position both to continue preserving this content and making it available to the general public; and this is a set of content for which we are able to make this decision.”
Not all pre-1923 content will be made available by JSTOR.
“We do not believe that just because something is in the public domain, it can always be provided for free. There are costs associated with selection, digitization, access provision, preservation, and a wide variety of services that are necessary for content to reach those who need it. We have determined that we can sustain free access and meet our preservation obligations for this particular set of content for individuals as part of our overall activities undertaken in pursuit of our mission.”
We thank JSTOR for making the Early Journal Content freely accessible.
For more information see: http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-journal-content and http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-journal-content-faqs
