A guide to JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services for Forum participants

JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services is a tiered framework designed to streamline digital collection management and expand tools for cataloging, preservation, metadata management, and more. In this guide, you'll find key changes for users of JSTOR Forum to be aware of when working in JSTOR Stewardship.

Key dates

What do I need to do?

No immediate action is required, but here are some things you can do now to prepare.

Update your bookmarks

Update your bookmarks from JSTOR Forum (forum.jstor.org) to JSTOR Stewardship (stewardship.jstor.org). Your login credentials will remain the same.

Update your Forum OAI base URL (if applicable)

For institutions that have set up one or more Forum OAI publishing targets and/or harvest records from the Forum OAI server, please note that the Forum OAI URL (http://oai.forum.jstor.org/oai/) will eventually be retired.

We encourage all users of the Forum OAI to update their OAI base URL in their harvesting software to the JSTOR Stewardship OAI URL (http://oai.stewardship.jstor.org/oai/) before the transition date.

The JSTOR Stewardship OAI URL is ready to use, so you can make this change as soon as you're ready, but please note that you’ll still see references to Forum in the server response up until the eventual retirement date.

What's changing?

Home page

There's a new home page experience in JSTOR Stewardship. You can find your recently accessed projects on the Home tab, and above your projects, you'll find three options to get started:

• Create a new project - This is equivalent to the Add Project button in Forum. You can create a new project or copy an existing one here.
• Manage existing projects - In addition to the View All button in your recently-accessed projects, this is another way to view the Projects page.
• Import metadata with collection builder - Formerly known as the Collection Builder (Beta) in Forum, you can create a new project starting with a metadata spreadsheet using this guided tool.

Sidebar

All of the tools you currently find in the Forum top navigation bar can be found in a new collapsible sidebar in JSTOR Stewardship. Please note that some options have new names and locations:

• The Users management area can be found under Manage Users in the Admin menu in the sidebar.
• The Admin Primary Project List can be found under Manage Permissions in the Admin menu in the sidebar.
• The Lists management area can be found under Manage Lists in the Cataloging Tools menu in the sidebar.
• Collection Builder (Beta) can be found under Build Collections in the Cataloging Tools menu in the sidebar.

Viewing project records

When viewing and working with your project records in JSTOR Stewardship, there are a few key differences to note:

• The Activity Monitor can be found under the Activity Monitor tab below the project name. (The Metadata Records tab is your project records view.)
• Find more actions for selected items under the three-dot overflow menu in the actions bar such as publishing, suppressing or deleting, downloading media, exporting records, or adding selected items to a set.
• Manage your saved sets and create new ones in the expandable Sets panel to the left of your project table.
• Manage your saved filters and create new ones with the Filter button or apply filters directly from one or more column headers.

Item page

When editing an individual item, your available cataloging forms, related objects (for compound objects), and transcripts (for audio and video, if applicable) will appear as tabs below the item name. Item-level actions such as Save and Publish can be found above the media viewer.

Open the three-dot drop-down menu to find more item options such as Main record actions, deleting, or suppressing an item.

Compound objects

When working with compound objects in JSTOR Stewardship, you can find all image files associated with the record under the Related objects tab below the item name.

• To replace a file, select Add File to upload a new image and then select and Delete the image you’re replacing.
• To reorder images in an object’s sequence, select one or more thumbnails then drag and drop them into position. Or tab to an item’s Reorder item button on your keyboard.

Bulk editing

When cataloging multiple items, there's a new, full-page bulk editing experience featuring access to your cataloging forms, the ability to publish selected items, and paste metadata from a main record.

When sub-selecting items from your initial selection, existing values in your cataloging fields will automatically update to reflect only the selected items. Fields can also now be cleared with a single click, eliminating the need to type "CLEAR" in a field to clear existing values.

User management

When adding new users, Institutional Admins can now grant users access to one or more existing projects and assign project roles on creation.

• Full Access (formerly project Admin) - Full Access users have access to all records, catalog forms, and publishing targets in the selected project(s).
• Cataloger - Cataloger users have limited access to designated records, catalog forms, and publishing targets in the selected project(s).

Statistics and usage

The Statistics link in the Admin menu will now take you a new Statistics tab on the home page. Here you’ll find information about your content storage, audio/video, and preservation allowances. Learn more about allowances for Tier 2 of JSTOR Stewardship.

From this tab, you can also find your shared collections usage reporting under Collections usage data.

Learn more

Webinars

JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Project administration (Recorded May 27, 2026)

Join us for a look at the advanced functionality available when working with Tier 2 and Tier 3 JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services. Learn how to create a project with existing content using the Collection Builder tool, manage complex relationships with your assets using compound objects, compilations, and containers, and explore lists.

This 60-minute webinar is appropriate for anyone managing projects using JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Tier 2 or Tier 3, including librarians and visual resource professionals.

JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Advanced features (Recorded April 29, 2026)

Join us for a look at the advanced functionality available when working with Tier 2 and Tier 3 JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services. Learn how to create a project with existing content using the Collection Builder tool, manage complex relationships with your assets using compound objects, compilations, and containers, and explore lists.

This 60-minute webinar is appropriate for anyone using JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Tier 2 or Tier 3 to catalog records, including librarians and visual resource professionals.

JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services training: Project cataloging (Recorded March 31, 2026)

Join us to learn the basics of cataloging using JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services for Tier 2 and Tier 3 users. Learn how to catalog records individually and in bulk, access data from linked fields, manage different types of media, and organize your work with sets and filters.

This 60-minute webinar is appropriate for anyone using JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Tier 2 or Tier 3 to catalog and publish records, including librarians, visual resource professionals, and student catalogers.

Exploring what's next: Your transition from Forum to JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services (Recorded November 20, 2025)

Join us to learn more about JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services and what’s next in your institution’s transition from Forum. We’ll review the updated transition timeline and dual access period, outline what to expect as you begin working in JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services, and provide a detailed walkthrough of the platform.

Video tutorials

Check out our Tier 2 video playlist on YouTube, updated for JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services.

Blog posts

Design as dialogue: Building JSTOR Stewardship through listening and evidence

Explore how user insights and community feedback have shaped the design of JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services, ensuring the transition from Forum reflects the real needs and workflows of digital stewards.