By LJ Staff

JSTOR is expanding its horizons. Following a two-year pilot program, the database of scholarly journals is now available to high school students. Those familiar with the ongoing program may ponder the need for such access to secondary school students, but JSTOR asserts that early training in use of the database will better prepare young students for the rigors of college-level research demands. The database gives high schoolers access to 322 peer-reviewed academic journals in 26 disciplines. JSTOR also asserts that having students even at the pre-college level utilize peer-reviewed journals for completing assignments ensures the quality of their findings. Adele Bildersee, director of libraries for New York's Dalton School concurred: "Despite the complexity of some of the articles," Bildersee said, "our initial concerns that the scholarly material in the journals would be 'over the heads' of our students proved unfounded." Bildersee added that using JSTOR helped the school's students sharpen their research skills and teach them about historical analysis. High schools can license access to all or any individual collections.