In September, the Swarthmore College libraries joined nearly 50 other institutions in offering JSTOR archival content access to alumni. Alumni now have access to an ever-expanding group of online journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences through the College’s Online Community. In February, the College extended alumni access to materials from Project Muse, including more than 500 current journals as well as a collection of e-books in political science and film and media studies.

“We’ve found that graduates may need to do research either for themselves or their work and that strategies and resources they learned as undergrads inform their research behavior after they leave,” College Librarian Peggy Seiden notes. “However, many of the resources they used as undergrads are not widely available to individuals, and corporate or public libraries do not typically subscribe to these types of materials. JSTOR was often the first place many undergraduates would turn to. The breadth and depth of coverage is unparalleled.”

Alumni have already taken advantage of access to JSTOR, and their enthusiasm for the service is evident in the frequency with which they have searched the database as well as in how often they have retweeted the announcement. Alumni searched JSTOR more than 800 times and accessed more than 200 different journal titles during the four-month pilot phase.

According to Evelyn Khoo-Schwartz ’05 and Benjamin Schwartz ’06, “You can take a Swattie out of school, but it’s hard to take school out of a Swattie!”

JSTOR and Project Muse may be accessed through the Online Community.