Searching Databases at Chaffey College: JSTOR

1. Basic Search Screen and landing page for JSTOR.  You can put in phrases, keywords, authors or titles without any special formatting in the Basic Search field. This will give you a broader list of results that will, at least, allow you to peruse some options.

2. You can get to Advanced Search from the JSTOR landing page by clicking on the 'advanced search' link above basic search.

3. You will not be able to search without text in the first two fields.   If you only chose a journal to narrow your search, for example, you will get an error that says, "We could not complete your search because nothing has been entered in the search form. Please try again."

Once you're on the advanced search page, you can limit your search by:

• author
• article/book/pamphlet/review title
• searching ONLY abstracts
• key words within full-text (a.k.a all the content ever)
• type of content (articles, books, pamphlets, reviews, everything else)
• date range
• language
• ISBN
• discipline or journal
• searching ONLY the content that your school/library subscribes to

Filter by Discipline and Journal

4.        Choose one of the disciplines from list at bottom of screen

5.        Expand arrow to see journals for this discipline:

6.         This relates to journal availability.   The "moving wall" in the world of JSTOR, refers to the gap of content between the archival and current issues of a journal.   It is set by a journal’s publisher and ranges from 0 to 10 years, although the majority of journals in the archive have moving walls of 3 to 5 years.  

This means that the most current issues of a journal may not be available.    However, JSTOR contains deep backfiles of many journals back to their beginning.

Look under the journal cover image on the right side of its information page.  (image illustrates below)

Moving walls are generally represented in years. In rare instances, a publisher has elected to have a "zero" moving wall, so their current issues are available in JSTOR shortly after publication.

Note: In calculating the moving wall, the current year is not counted.   For example, if the current year is 2008 and a journal has a 5 year moving wall, articles from the year 2002 are available.

Other Terms Related to the Journal Availability:

Fixed walls: Journals with no new volumes being added to the archive. 

Absorbed: Journals that are combined with another title.

Complete: Journals that are no longer published or that have been combined with another title.

7.        Field Searching:   There are drop down menus next to each field which allow you to field search.

Full-Text searches EVERYTHING in the archive.   Author limits your search to the name of an author. Item Title limits your search to titles (of books and journal/pamphlet articles) on JSTOR.   Abstract searches for your terms in abstracts ONLY.   Caption will search for your phrase in the captions beneath photos (this is especially relevant in art journals should you, say, be looking for a specific painting).

Icons and/or links for Downloading a PDF, Saving an Article to Your Profile, Citing, and Sharing are to the top right of the article page.

The journal title has a hyperlink you can click on that will take you to the journal's information page.