[Eril-l] JSTOR Offers $4 Million Fee Relief for Libraries and Guarantees Revenue for Publishers; Holds Pricing Flat Through 2023

[Sarah Glasser]

Dear colleagues,


As education institutions around the world continue to grapple with the momentous impact of COVID-19, we have been examining how we can work together to continue to help institutions, libraries, and publishers during these challenging times. Today we are announcing several new efforts to assist our community:


$4 million relief for JSTOR and Artstor participating libraries


We are establishing a $4 million relief initiative to mitigate the unprecedented financial impact of COVID-19 on our participating libraries. We want to do what we can to deliver financial relief to colleges and universities, secondary schools, public libraries, government, and non-profit institutions. This relief will be distributed as follows:

*         All participating institutions will receive a fee offset to one year of JSTOR and Artstor annual access fees, ranging from 3.5% to 5%.

*         This fee offset will be issued as a one-time credit to our participants, but can be applied when needed any time from 2021 to 2023.

*         It can be used for JSTOR or Artstor renewals beginning January 1, 2021, or put towards licensing additional resources, including Books at JSTOR, if a reduction in annual fees is not preferred.

*         Participating institutions will receive information about their fee offset in the coming weeks, and we encourage you to contact us at participation at jstor.org<mailto:participation at jstor.org> with any questions in the interim.


Preserving publisher revenue share payments


Access to JSTOR is possible through the participation of publishers and scholarly societies. Each year we distribute a portion of JSTOR's gross annual revenues to these content providers. We anticipate that the economic impact of COVID-19 will reduce revenue generated by JSTOR in 2020, resulting in a lower revenue share distribution due to publishers in early 2021. We commit today to guarantee our publisher partners at least the same revenue share distributions for 2020 that were paid for 2019.


No fee increase for JSTOR Archive Collections and Artstor through 2023


We also commit to hold fees for JSTOR Archive Collections and the Artstor Digital Library at the current level for the next three years, through 2023.


We take our role as a not-for-profit organization with a mission to expand access to scholarship very seriously. We are stewards of the resources you contribute to support our efforts. Covering the costs of these initiatives will require us to run an operating deficit this year, but we are also taking steps to reduce expenses. We have cut spending throughout the organization, decreased inefficiencies, and imposed limits on hiring. We are also considering many of the steps libraries and publishers have had to take, including salary freezes and reductions to retirement contributions for employees. These are not easy decisions, but we are all part of one community facing these challenges. Moments like these demand creativity and sacrifice from us all, and we continue to be inspired by how our community has rallied to meet the challenges of the day.

You can read the full text of this announcement at https://about.jstor.org/news/, and learn about additional resources available to institutions impacted by COVID-19 at https://about.jstor.org/covid19/.

Kind regards,
Sarah Glasser
Associate Vice President, Marketing
ITHAKA<https://www.ithaka.org/> / 2 Rector St, 18th Fl, New York, NY 10006
Phone: 212.358.6419
Email: sarah.glasser at ithaka.org

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