What's in this article:
- What is a Moving Wall embargo?
- Where can I find Moving Wall Information?
- Why it's important to understand the Moving Wall date
What is the Moving Wall Embargo?
The Moving Wall embargo refers to the gap of content between the archival (or past) and current (more recent) issues of a journal. The Moving Wall delay is set by a journal’s publisher and ranges from 0 to 10 years, although the majority of journals in the JSTOR archive have a Moving Wall delay of 3 to 5 years.
The Wall resets, or moves forward, after a complete year, every year in early January. This is when another year of content is added into the JSTOR archive. The Moving Wall calculation does not include the current year.
For example, in 2019 for a journal with a Moving Wall delay set to 5 years, archival content goes up to 2013. (5 years from the previously completed year, which would be 2018).
Where can I find Moving Wall Information?
To find the Moving Wall embargo for a journal, from any journal landing page, you will see a menu to the right of the journal's title, “Journal Info.” The Moving Wall delay and other information about the journal are listed below the “Description” and “Coverage” sections of the Journal Info.
For example, open the Journal Info drop-down menu of The Georgia Review to expand details about the journal.
In this case, the Moving Wall delay is 3 years, which means that if this year is 2019, archival access is available up to and including content published in 2015.
Remember, when calculating the Moving Wall delay, the current year is not included.
Why it's important to understand the Moving Wall Delay:
If you can't access a specific issue of a journal and aren't sure why, it might be because of the moving wall embargo.
Unsure of whether you should be able to read certain issues of a journal? Check with your librarian on how to get access to the content you need, or contact Support.