What's in this article:
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.
So 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).
To find the Moving Wall embargo for a journal, navigate to any journal landing page, you will see a menu to the right of the journal's title that says “Journal Info.” The Moving Wall delay is listed below "Description" and "Coverage" in that area. Let’s look at an example, The Georgia Review.
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, do not include the current year!
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.
If you ever have questions about access, or are unsure of whether you should be able to read certain issues of a journal, you can always check with your librarian to see how to get access to the content you need or contact us in User Support.