JSTOR
jstor.org
What it is
JSTOR is a research and learning platform with scholarly and primary-source material across more than 70 disciplines. Its collection contains more than 12 million academic journal articles, millions of primary sources, ebooks, and Artstor images and multimedia. Advanced search and discovery tools help locate content. Workspace lets users save, annotate, organize, upload and share research in folders, then export it as PDFs, PowerPoints or ZIP files. A free personal account can read up to 10 eligible articles online every 30 days, though publisher policies exclude some articles. Users may connect a personal account to a subscribing institution for remote access. JPASS Monthly costs $19.50 per month and includes unlimited reading from 2,400+ academic journals and 10 PDF downloads per month. JPASS Yearly costs $199.00 per year and includes 120 PDF downloads per year. JSTOR supports mobile browsers, keyboard navigation and screen readers, and accepts requests for accessible versions of content. Its audience includes students, educators, librarians and researchers.
Spec sheet
- What it does
- JSTOR is a nonprofit digital library combining peer-reviewed journals, scholarly ebooks, primary sources and millions of images.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Purpose
- JSTOR is an interactive research and learning platform with primary and secondary sources across more than 70 disciplines.Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Audience
- JSTOR describes its platform as serving research, teaching, and learning, with solutions for librarians, educators, students, and researchers.Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Security
- ITHAKA says its services, including JSTOR, follow SOC 2 information-security standards and are covered by annual external audits.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Privacy
- ITHAKA says it does not sell personal data, supports data deletion requests and uses GDPR transfer mechanisms where required.Read 15 Oct 2026 · jstor.org
- Support
- JSTOR Support accepts requests by email form, phone, and text, and says form responses typically arrive within one to two business days.Read 30 Sep 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Founded
- LinkedIn lists JSTOR’s founding year as 1995.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Access options
- Users can connect a personal account to a subscribing institution for remote access, and supported institutional login options include Google or Microsoft single sign-on.Read 30 Sep 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Accessibility
- JSTOR states that it applies WCAG and Section 508 standards and provides accessible PDFs, image alt text and an issue-reporting workflow.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- AI limitation
- The AI research tool currently supports journal articles, book chapters and research reports but not images, audio, video or text-based primary sources.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- AI research tool
- JSTOR’s AI tool supports natural-language searching, document questions and discovery of related topics and materials.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Browser support
- Supported browsers are current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge; Internet Explorer 11 is unsupported.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Collection
- The platform includes more than 12 million academic journal articles, millions of primary sources, ebooks, and Artstor images and multimedia.Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Collection size
- JSTOR reports more than 12 million academic journal articles, 158,000 scholarly books and over 2 million images and multimedia items.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Company history
- JSTOR says it was founded in 1995 and is a nonprofit working with libraries, museums, and publishers worldwide.Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Company identity
- LinkedIn describes JSTOR as part of ITHAKA, a nonprofit organization serving academic preservation, research and teaching.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Company size
- LinkedIn lists JSTOR as a nonprofit with 201–500 employees and headquarters in New York, New York.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Corporate history
- An ITHAKA announcement says JSTOR was established in 1997, merged with Ithaka in 2009 and became part of the renamed ITHAKA organization.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Developer projects
- JSTOR Labs publishes open-source projects including Juncture, Access in Prison source code, Topicgraph and Reflowit with GitHub documentation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · labs-query.jstor.org
- Documentation
- The JSTOR help center provides end-user and administrator documentation, FAQs, tutorials, release notes and troubleshooting guidance.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Ebooks
- Books at JSTOR contains more than 158,000 DRM-free ebooks from over 340 academic publishers, including open-access titles.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Free access limit
- A free personal account can read up to 10 eligible articles online every 30 days; publisher policies exclude some articles from the program.Read 30 Sep 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Google Scholar integration
- JSTOR supplies participating institutions’ IP and license information to Google Scholar so licensed results can show JSTOR links.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Images
- Artstor on JSTOR supplies over two million rights-cleared images and multimedia items from more than 300 curated collections.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Independent coverage praise
- Bentley University’s library guide says JSTOR’s broad journal backfiles and scholarly reputation can support undergraduate through doctoral research.Read 15 Oct 2026 · bentley.edu
- Independent integration
- Monash University’s Zotero guide lists JSTOR among databases whose result lists can be batch-exported into Zotero using RIS or BibTeX.Read 15 Oct 2026 · guides.lib.monash.edu
- Independent outage status
- SaaSHub’s status page reported JSTOR up, with no reported issues in the previous 24 hours and 100% monitored uptime over the prior 30 days at its check.Read 15 Oct 2026 · saashub.com
- Institutional integrations
- JSTOR documents support for EZproxy and OpenAthens for institutional remote access.Read 30 Sep 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Integration
- Hypothesis integrates with JSTOR to support collaborative annotation and peer discussion through learning management systems.Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Journal coverage
- Its journal archive covers more than 2,800 titles across the humanities, social sciences and sciences, often beginning with each journal’s first issue.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Lean Library integration
- A Lean Library browser-extension integration surfaces JSTOR licensed and open content beside Google and Google Scholar results.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Limit: citation output
- The review found errors in APA, Chicago and MLA citation formatting generated by JSTOR.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Limit: freshness
- The librarians’ review noted that archival titles commonly have a three-to-five-year moving-wall embargo, so much content is not current.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Limit: institutional cost
- The community-college review described a one-time $1,000 Archive Capital Fee plus annual access fees that vary by institution size and classification.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Limit: search interface
- The same review rated search 2.5 out of 4 and reported no spellcheck and no subject-search option.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Mobile access
- Mobile use is supported through the current native browser on iOS Safari and Android Chrome.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Mobile support
- JSTOR supports the current native browser on mobile, including Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android.Read 30 Sep 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Notable news: free reading change
- JSTOR announced that from September 1, 2026 registered readers would receive 10 free online articles every 30 days instead of the prior 100-article allowance.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Notable news: platform migration
- On February 9, 2015 ITHAKA announced that JSTOR was moving from Atypon’s Literatum platform to an ITHAKA-built technology platform.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Praise: content quality
- The California Community College librarians’ review rated JSTOR database content and format 4 out of 4 and described the full-text collection as high quality.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Praise: support
- The California Community College review rated user support 3 out of 4 and praised its detailed documentation, FAQs, webinars and multiple support channels.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cclibrarians.org
- Primary sources
- JSTOR provides more than two million primary sources across four licensed collections.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
- Search
- The platform offers advanced search and discovery with filters for content type, subject and other metadata.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Security and privacy
- ITHAKA’s privacy policy says it may collect account and authentication information to provide JSTOR access through libraries and institutions.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ithaka.org
- Text analysis
- JSTOR offers downloadable bibliographic metadata and request-based full-text JSON datasets for digital humanities and text-analysis research.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Text-analysis restrictions
- Full-text dataset requests must support research or teaching, cannot train AI models or create substitute databases, and are limited to fewer than 1.5 million items.Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
- Workspace
- JSTOR Workspace lets users save, organize, annotate and share articles, books, images and primary sources.Read 15 Oct 2026 · about.jstor.org
Plans and prices
Read only Free Open content and public-domain articles · Limited free reading of select items · Workspace Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
Read only Free open content and public-domain articles · limited free reading · Workspace saving Read 15 Oct 2026 · jstor.org
JPASS Monthly $19.50 a month Monthly Unlimited article reading from 2,400+ academic journals · 10 PDF downloads per month · Workspace Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
JPASS Monthly $19.50 a month monthly unlimited online reading · 10 PDF downloads per month · 2,400+ journals Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
JPASS Annual $199 a year annual one-time payment unlimited online reading · 120 PDF downloads per year · 2,400+ journals Read 15 Oct 2026 · support.jstor.org
JPASS Yearly $199 a year One-time annual payment Unlimited article reading from 2,400+ academic journals · 120 PDF downloads per year · Workspace Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
Institutional access Priced on request Custom quote Fees and options depend on institution type and classification Read 30 Sep 2026 · about.jstor.org
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Content spans more than 70 disciplines
- Workspace supports annotation and research organization
- Offers advanced search and discovery
- Supports mobile browsers, keyboard navigation and screen readers
Limits
- Free account access is limited to 10 eligible articles every 30 days
- Some articles are excluded by publisher policies
- No free trial
Who it suits
JSTOR suits students, educators, librarians and researchers looking for multidisciplinary scholarly and primary-source materials. Readers can use a free personal account, JPASS, or access through a subscribing institution.
Verdict
JSTOR combines a large multidisciplinary collection with search and tools for organizing research. Free reading is limited, while JPASS offers paid plans with defined article and PDF-download access.
Where Specifiction places it
- Academic Research Databases#4 of 358.8
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