The Society recently signed an agreement to include every page of every issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL), from 1:1 in 1881 and into the indefinite future as part of the JSTOR Arts & Sciences III Collection. JSTOR, an independent not-for-profit organization with a mission to create a trusted archive of scholarly journals and to increase access to those journals as widely as possible, projects that JBL will be available in this collection no later than the beginning of 2006.

As a result of this agreement, the entire run of nearly 125 years of JBL will become more widely available than ever before. JSTOR currently has over two thousand participating institutions in over eighty countries, and many of these participants will gain access to the back issues of JBL when it is released in the archive. In addition, since SBL staff members will have access to the JBL archive in JSTOR, we expect to offer, sometime in the not-too-distant future, the ability to provide offprints of JBL articles upon request (for a fee, of course). Finally, the Society will also have the opportunity to undertake special projects using the digitized files, such as readers and compilations of articles on specific topics (e.g., a compilation of presidential addresses or of articles on a specific topic), should we so choose.

SBL members are asked to support this important endeavor in several ways. First, encourage your institution to participate in one or more of the JSTOR collections (but especially A&S III). JSTOR offers an inexpensive means of providing comprehensive access to important journals in the arts, sciences, and humanities, and it deserves widespread support and participation. Second, the SBL and JSTOR are currently in the process of collecting back issues of JBL for inclusion in the JSTOR archive.

If you can contribute or loan any of the following issues, please contact Leigh Andersen at: leigh.andersen@sbl-site.org.

1:1 (1881) —63:4 (1944)
64 (1945): 1
65 (1946): 1, 2, 3
66 (1947): 3
67 (1948): 2
71 (1952): 2, 4

Citation: Leigh Andersen, " JBL to be Available through JSTOR," SBL Forum , n.p. [cited March 2005]. Online:http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=384