William & Mary’s more than 90,000 alumni now have access to JSTOR thanks to the College library’s participation in JSTOR’s Alumni Access program.
Alumni can freely use all JSTOR collections licensed by W&M’s Swem Library. JSTOR (short for “journal storage”) is a digital archive of over 1,700 academic journals and one million primary resources.
Swem is one of only two academic libraries in Virginia – Washington and Lee University Library being the other – currently offering JSTOR alumni access, and one of 47 university libraries worldwide participating in the program.
“Offering alumni access to scholarly journals is an exciting proposition. In the past our licenses didn't allow us to expand access to all of our graduates at a reasonable cost. We love helping our alumni stay connected with the scholarly resources they used as students,” said W&M Dean of University Libraries Carrie Cooper.
W&M alumni can access JSTOR at www.wmalumni.com/JSTOR by signing in with their member login.
Funding to provide JSTOR alumni access is a joint effort between Swem Library and the William & Mary Alumni Association, with the help of an anonymous donor.
Michael Rawlings, W&M class of ‘82 and member of Swem’s Board of Directors, uses JSTOR to access historical documents to assist him in his role as an accredited genealogist and instructor.
“I'm thrilled about the announcement that W&M alumni will now have access to JSTOR. This is an amazing resource for any of us involved with research, teaching and publishing,” Rawlings said. “Having access online to JSTOR will save so much time previously spent on driving to university libraries, and it will contribute to our shared pursuit of lifelong learning.”
W&M alumnus Ben Swenson ’04 uses JSTOR for his research needs as well. He is currently writing a book on abandoned historic sites and writes the companion blog, Abandoned Country.
“It's a big help to be able to access these resources from home on my own time, which is often very early in the morning,” Swenson said. “Because JSTOR is such a broad database, I'm often able to find numerous resources that help my work along.”
The launch of JSTOR’s Alumni Access program follows a 3-year pilot that was undertaken with nearly 50 institutions. JSTOR introduced the pilot to address interest from participating institutions, and to examine whether the model would help to serve requests from individuals who are no longer active students at participating institutions. It is now open to eligible higher education institutions worldwide.
More information on JSTOR’s Alumni Access program can be found on the JSTOR website.