Science, one of the top journals of general scientific research, is pulling out of JSTOR, the popular online archive of scholarly journals.

The journal’s parent organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, announced its decision last week, effective December 31. Since articles from the journal appear on JSTOR five years after they are published, the decision means no articles after 2002 will appear in the archive.

Ginger Pinholster, a spokeswoman for the association, told The Chronicle that because Science has put all of its back issues online, and is in the process of adding features such as Web links to each paper’s references, there was no need for further use of JSTOR.

Individual subscribers to Science get online access to the full archives, while institutional subscribers (including libraries) automatically get access to issues since 1997 and can pay for access going back to 1880 for $2,200 per year or a one-time payment of $15,000.

JSTOR’s access fees for its health- and general-sciences collection are much higher, except for small academic institutions, but the service does give access to many other journals as well.

“Our archival fee structure is affordable,” Ms. Pinholster said. “We think it was a natural next step for Science.”

Since JSTOR will still have coverage of the journal through 2002, and all Science subscribers get access back to 1997, no current subscribers or libraries should find themselves missing content they used to have, she said. —Lila Guterman