JSTOR for community colleges

Hear JSTOR leaders and community members reflect on key learnings, impact, and what’s next for Path to Open.

JSTOR is rethinking accessibility at scale by shifting from static remediation to an on-demand model, creating accessible PDFs and image descriptions the moment they’re needed. This approach expands access across centuries of materials while ensuring usability for all.

This month’s JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services update highlights a growing network of libraries, archives, and cultural heritage organizations working to expand access to digital collections. Featured materials include photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Occidental College, a collection of mid-century Malibu matchbooks, and visual records documenting the development of Brasília.

Working with Eastern Michigan University and archivists across institutions, JSTOR explored how AI can support collections processing. The project focused on generating metadata drafts and building workflows that center review, context, and archival standards.

How are academic libraries assessing new approaches to ebook acquisition, and what early signals help determine their value?

JSTOR ranks in the top 1% of most accessible home pages worldwide in the 2026 WebAIM Million report, achieving zero automated accessibility errors.

In “From jailhouse lawyer to fellow,” Joseph Sanchez reflects on how learning the law to navigate his own case became a way to support others and ultimately led to his work with the Legal Literacy at Work fellowship.

In recognition of Fair Opportunity Month, “Education is My Contraband” traces Taveuan Williams’s journey from survival to self-discovery through reading and learning. Inside a system designed to reduce him, education becomes both resistance and refuge, offering a way to rebuild identity, confront the past, and imagine a future beyond confinement.

In recognition of Fair Opportunity Month, “Restorative Justice: The Casuistic Approach” brings together lived experience, philosophy, and theology to reexamine how we define justice. Drawing from their own lives inside the Colorado Department of Corrections, Robert Ray and Clarke T. Clayton explore restorative justice as a human-centered practice.