JSTOR Daily is a daily magazine that contextualizes current and historical events with scholarship found on JSTOR. We’re published by JSTOR, the nonprofit digital library of scholarly journals, books, images, audio, research reports, and primary sources. JSTOR Daily stories are what we like to call academic adjacent—they’re carefully researched and written by experts for a general audience. Each piece provides historical, scientific, literary, political, and other background for understanding our world. Our stories are edited by professional editors and fact-checked by a professional fact-checker or an editor, but they’re not peer reviewed in the way academic papers or books might be. We pay all of our contributors. Every JSTOR Daily story contains links to free, publicly accessible research on JSTOR, which we make available for all readers. We’re proud to publish editorially independent articles based in fact and grounded by careful research and to provide free access to that research. You’ll find those free JSTOR resources marked with a little “J” icon that looks like this:
The same free links appear in the “Resources” section at the bottom of each story. In addition, we publish free teaching resources for higher ed and secondary school faculty.
What is JSTOR?
JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students of all kinds that provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, images, shared collections, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico.
You can find out more about JSTOR here and explore all of the open access content on JSTOR here. Individuals can register for a free account on JSTOR. The benefits of an individual JSTOR account are outlined here. You may also have access through your public library or as an alumni. Those individuals who need to download PDFs for independent research can sign up for JPASS, our paid service for researchers who don’t have access by other means.
Who funds JSTOR Daily?
JSTOR Daily is primarily funded by ITHAKA, the nonprofit parent organization of JSTOR. Additional, crucial funding comes from our individual readers who join our membership program on Patreon. Members get exclusive member-only content that varies by membership level. Memberships begin at $5 per month. We also have occasional support from grants. We’re grateful to the Mellon Foundation for a grant that supported the development of the American Prison Newspaper collection and related content on JSTOR Daily. The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley awarded us a grant to produce conversations about the subject of Intellectual Humility. We published those as a limited series podcast in January 2024. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
How can I support your work?
If you would like to support editorially independent, research-backed nonprofit news, please consider becoming a member on Patreon. We don’t currently take donations at this time, but if you’re interested in making a contribution, please Contact the Editors with questions. We welcome individual and institutional support.
What does JSTOR Daily publish?
Our writers are scholars, librarians, journalists, critics, scientists, and—above all—keen observers of the world around them. We publish weekly long-form feature articles that explore the sometimes-hidden depths of newsy topics. In addition, our daily blog posts explore parallels between existing lines of study and the headlines of the day. We also showcase regular columns by subject-matter experts writing for a popular audience. In general, we like stories that are thought-provoking, reader-friendly, unique, and—most importantly—backed by academic integrity and peer review. In addition, our long form features are fact-checked by an independent contractor. If you think we got something wrong, have a question, or want to sing our praises, we encourage you to contact us.
Our work is editorially independent. The opinions and other information contained in JSTOR Daily stories do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of JSTOR or ITHAKA.
Awards
JSTOR Daily received a 2024 Silver Anthem Award for news and journalism that raises awareness of education, arts, and culture. We’re proud to be honored alongside other noteworthy winners, including the Sesame Workshop, GLAAD, the Southern Poverty Law Center, AARP, and the Brooklyn Museum.
JSTOR Daily received a 2023 Silver Anthem Award for news and journalism. The Anthem Awards program is run by the Webby Awards to honor the best purpose and mission-driven work of people, companies, and organizations worldwide.
In 2017, JSTOR Daily received the Best Non-Newspaper Food Feature award from the Association of Food Journalists for Cara Strickland’s “Why Was Turkish Delight C.S. Lewis’s Guilty Pleasure?”
In September 2015, JSTOR Daily was highly commended by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) Awards for Innovation in Publishing. The judges looked for innovative products which offer significant benefit to scholarly communication combined with a sustainable business model.
In June 2015, JSTOR Daily also received a Digital Publishing Award for Best Newcomer from the Innovation Enterprise Digital Publishing Awards.