JSTOR provides electronic access to back runs of more than 400 important scholarly. Disciplines included are: African American Studies, African Studies, Anthropology, Aquatic Sciences, Archaeology, Architecture, Art & Art History, Asian Studies, Biological Sciences, Botany and Plant Sciences, Business, Classical Studies, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Economics, Education, Feminist & Women studies, Finance, Folklore, General Science, Geography, History, History of Science & Technology, Language & Literature, Latin American Studies, Law, Mathematics, Middle East Studies, Paleontology, Performing Arts, Philosophy, Political Science, Population Studies, Psychology, Public Policy & Administration, Slavic Studies, Sociology, and Statistics. An alphabetical list of the journals included in the database is available from the "Browse" option in the top menu bar.

The database allows keyword and Boolean searching across the full-text of all journals in the database, selected subsets of journal titles, or in just a single title. Searching by authors, titles, and publication dates is also available. Results display as page images, including not only text, but photographs, illustrations, musical notation, and all other graphic features. Users may not only view citations and articles, but also print and download.

Earliest date is 1665; due to "moving wall" agreements with the publishers, JSTOR does not include current issues of journals; the most recently published issue of any current journal will not appear in JSTOR until 1-5 years after the publishing date.