JSTOR has developed a policy supporting authors who decide to change their name, for any reason. The policy balances JSTOR’s role as archivists of the historical record with support for authors who want their names to accurately reflect their identity. It has also been taken into account that most of the content on JSTOR is in image (PDF) + OCR format.
The approach will be to add the author’s current/correct name to the metadata for the work (appearing as a separate name in addition to the former name) so the work will be recognized and discoverable on JSTOR and in outside search services under both the current/correct and former name. The benefit of including both names is that the work remains discoverable whether a user has an older or current citation or is searching under any author’s former name.
For authors who wish to minimize the appearance of their former name in their work, such as for transgender authors, in consultation with them, the former name (or a portion of the name, such as a first name) will be removed from the metadata and block the same from the image (PDF) of the work. The former name will also be removed from the article OCR so it will not appear in text searches. Discussions with authors will be conducted to ensure that prior to taking this action, authors understand the potential impacts on discoverability of the work.
Tags: Author support, JSTOR Policy, Policy to Support Author Name change
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