The Moving Wall

Journals in JSTOR have "moving walls" that define the time lag between the most current issue published and the content available in JSTOR. The majority of journals in the archive have moving walls of between 3 and 5 years, but publishers may elect walls anywhere from zero to 10 years.

The moving wall is designed to help protect the economic sustainability of our content providers. By not making the most current content available on JSTOR, publishers preserve revenue opportunities from current issues subscriptions, while making sure that the back file is preserved and made continually accessible to scholars. Because JSTOR recognizes the importance to researchers of being able to discover back and current issues through a single resource, we offer links to the current issues of a number of journals in the archive.

While nearly all journals in JSTOR have specific moving walls, there are a few exceptions.

Coverage presently ends

• In cases where the moving wall has been lengthened or shortened, the proper time period will not be immediately reflected.
• In cases where there is a gap between the issues available on the publisher's site and the issues available on JSTOR, a publisher may request that JSTOR release more issues to close the gap, temporarily shortening the moving wall. Once the moving wall period is re-established, JSTOR would begin adding issues again.

Fixed walls

In JSTOR's early days, publishers had the option of "fixing" the wall at a certain volume range. In these cases (limited to three publishers), JSTOR is no longer adding issues to the archive. We recognize that many libraries and researchers would prefer that publishers maintain moving walls, and have shared these desires with our participating publishers. We are making efforts to mitigate the impact of fixed walls, and, in an effort to provide some assurance to libraries relying on JSTOR as an archive of these journals, we have negotiated a special provision in our license agreements with the "fixed wall" publishers. Should a publisher elect to no longer make the journal issues available electronically to the library community, the issues will be added to the JSTOR archive and made available to our participants.

• Duke University Press*
• The London School of Economics and Political Science (British Journal of Sociology)
• Oxford University Press*

(*Note: Not all titles have fixed walls at this time. Check specific journal information for details.)

Range of Moving Walls in JSTOR (as of November 2010)

*A limited number of journals have "fixed walls." For these journals, JSTOR is not adding additional issues to the archive. Fixed walls are no longer an option for publishers working with JSTOR. All publishers are now required to select a moving wall of between zero to ten years.