Collections: JSTOR is Introducing a New Archive Fee Model Option

From a Letter by Ithaka President Kevin Guthrie:

I recently shared the 2023 priorities ITHAKA has set to help provide the infrastructure the academic community needs to support research, teaching, and learning in an increasingly digital world. One of our most important aims is to provide universal access to as much content as possible. We are pursuing this through a range of initiatives, including Path to Open launched last month. I am excited to share another effort today: a new archive fee model that offers libraries another option to provide comprehensive access to all of our JSTOR Archival Journal and Primary Source collections.

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In brief, we have created a new single collection composed of all JSTOR Archival Journal and Primary Source collections and set an annual access fee (AAF) for this full collection for each institutional classification. Institutions who opt into this model will gain immediate access to the complete collection while starting at their current AAF level plus a modest adjustment of 2%-5% that continues to be applied annually until they reach the full fee. The annual fee adjustment percentage is based on the number of collections an institution currently licenses to recognize current investment. Institutions will eventually reach the same AAF for each classification, but the number of years to reach it will vary.

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Part of JSTOR’s non-profit mission is to support the long-term preservation of the content in our care. We established the Archive Capital Fee (ACF) to provide resources so that JSTOR could fulfill that promise. We have retained and invested these funds for long-term growth, drawing on them only when needed for specific preservation activities like migrating content formats to keep apace with technology. Because of the significant support from the education community over the past 25+ years, and our careful investment of those resources, we have secured sufficient reserves to continue to preserve this content in the future. With the support of our trustees, we have therefore decided to eliminate the one-time Archive Capital Fee (ACF) for all collections and participants moving forward.

Learn More, Read the Complete Letter by Kevin Guthrie (630 words)

Filed under: Libraries, News, Preservation