JSTOR is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for persons with disabilities. We apply WCAG and Section 508 standards to improve the user experience for everyone.
The latest JSTOR Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) (PDF) demonstrates compliance with both Section 508 and WCAG standards and guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for persons with disabilities at three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. The target for JSTOR is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Measures to support accessibility
The website is accessible to users with disabilities, including persons using a keyboard and those with visual and cognitive impairments.
Measures have been taken to ensure that users are able to:
- Zoom in at least 200%. Text will adjust so it can be presented without loss of information or functionality.
- Resize text, adjust text spacing, and color contrast
- Navigate the website using just a keyboard
- Listen and use the website using a screen reader (ex. NVDA, VoiceOver, JAWS). Headings, labels to interactive elements, and proper reading order make information available to assistive technology.
- Skip directly to main content and skip long lists of links
- Access publisher-supplied alt text and image descriptions of content
We regularly use automated checks and manual audits to evaluate and measure the accessibility of the site.
Content formats
Content is available as scanned page images and as PDFs. A subset of the content is available in HTML format. Details on rights, use, copying, and printing is available on the JSTOR terms and conditions of use page. To open PDF files, you will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (see Adobe’s Accessibility Conformance Report).
PDF accessibility
We have made every effort to ensure that our image-based PDF files are accessible and can be read with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. These files are tagged at a high level using an automated process. While this method is not exact, it significantly increases the accessibility of files as compared to an untagged version.
In the event that the PDF tagging described is not sufficient for your use, we can perform manual tagging for you. We are also happy to reformat PDFs that are unreadable via screen reader. Please contact us if you require PDF tagging, need content in an alternative format, find an accessibility issue with the website, or need general assistance. You can do this via phone, chat, or email (listed below). Please include citations for any requested articles. Turnaround time for requests will vary but we generally respond in 3 days or less.
- Limit of 3 articles per request
- Turnaround time is 3 days per request
Contact us
If there are PDFs that don’t work with your screen reader or you have further questions about accessibility, please contact us.
Phone: (888) 388-3574
Email: support@jstor.org
Twitter: @JSTORSupport
Hours: Monday-Friday, 8:30 AM-5:00 P.M. EDT
Last updated December 7, 2020