Scholarly Journals, because of the limited audiences and costs of publishing, are expensive. Their contents are copyright. Most libraries cannot afford to subscribe to more than a selection of those available, and all institutions are short of shelf space.

JSTOR maintains an archive of many journals and attempts to provide access as widely as possible. Originally it was a project of the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
The Arts and Sciences complement of JSTOR, for example, is some 500 journals, and it is being increased annually.

The library of the small company research group I worked with before retirement spent several thousand dollars a year just for specific journals in my group's specialty. These journals came from many European countries including USSR and some from elsewhere including India and Japan. We supplemented with loans of material from universities and other research groups. If JSTOR had been available then, the company could have shaved thousands off their budget.

JSTOR participating institutions are in all regions of the U. S. and there are members in UK and Ireland.