Despite its limitations, JSTOR is a favorite of students. Although it is not featured prominently in our information literacy sessions, JSTOR is consistently among our most accessed databases. This gives journals on JSTOR a significant platform advantage, but previously it had been difficult to measure. An accurate “apples to apples” comparison of JSTOR and other full text sources was impossible because coverage dates for journals vary by platform and the JR1 combines full text usage from all years of publication. With the widespread adoption of the JR5, we have a new tool that can be used to benchmark usage across platforms with overlapping journal coverage. The JR5 reports the number of full text downloads for each year of publication. This allows us to compare usage for the same content (title/year of publication) across platforms. The decision by University of Chicago Press to discontinue its participation in JSTOR’s Current Scholarship program in 2016 provides an excellent case study that demonstrates the importance of measuring the magnitude of platform advantage. This poster will present the results of a study of reported usage data from University of Chicago Press journals from both the JSTOR and University of Chicago Press platforms. Graphs will demonstrate the discrepancies in use between the same content on the different platforms and illustrate the changes in use as a result of the platform change for current scholarship content. Implications for cost per download and overall value of journal subscriptions will be discussed. I hope viewers of the poster will reflect upon the role that platform plays in providing information to researchers and value to libraries. I also hope that the presented data will lead to broader discussions about how publishing and purchasing decisions have implications that may not be initially understood if access issues are not fully considered.
