Wall Street Journal offers free access to Stanford affiliates

April 22, 2018, 8:02 p.m.

A new partnership between Stanford Libraries and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) closed on April 17 provides complimentary WSJ memberships to all Stanford students, faculty and staff.

Each membership comprises full access to WSJ.com, WSJ mobile app, curated newsletters and WSJ+, an addition that includes premium offers and rewards.

Steve Severinghaus, director of communications for The WSJ, said that The WSJ and Stanford’s partnership is in a “trial period.”

In a written statement to The Daily, Julie Williamsen, director of the Graduate School of Business library, said that The WSJ offered a year-long, complimentary subscription to the University. Next year, Stanford has the option to purchase the digital subscription.

However, Williamsen said that the process of implementing the system is ongoing and will likely take a couple of weeks.

“Once completed, Stanford students, faculty and and staff will be able to access and create a personal WSJ login,” she said. “The login will need to be renewed annually. Links to the digital paper will be available from the Stanford Libraries, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Library websites.”

Sean Kaneshiro, manager of collection development and research discovery at the GSB’s library, said that Stanford Libraries has delayed publicizing the deal because of “technical issues related to WSJ access.”

However, a few students reported seeing a sponsored ad from @wsj on their Instagram feeds alerting students that “Stanford University has partnered with The Wall Street Journal to provide complimentary digital memberships to students.”

The Daily also ran a full-page advertisement of the program, paid for by The WSJ, in its Friday print issue.

Maggie Roache ’21 expressed excitement about free access to the newspaper and said she plans to use the program to keep up with news beyond Stanford’s campus.

“I know that personally I have found that living on a college campus bubble makes it very easy to fall behind on current events and I have many friends who share this feeling and a desire to be more in the know about news,” she said. “So I think what I’d do with a membership is take advantage of free access to a highly esteemed paper and read articles from the WSJ to help me stay more updated on current events.”

Williamsen clarified that Stanford’s libraries currently afford community members access to a number of publications.

“Stanford Libraries offer access to a wide range of news sources through various subscription databases for affiliated students, faculty and staff,” she said. “Librarians are always happy to assist if one is ever looking for a particular publication or article.”

Alex Andreadis, marketing manager for student memberships at WSJ, said that with a WSJ membership, students will no longer be required to navigate library websites to access an article.

While Stanford students can retrieve select WSJ articles via research databases that Stanford Libraries already subscribes to, such as ProQuest, LexisNexis and Factiva, access is limited. The databases only allow students to search a single article at a time, and the publishing date must lie within a predetermined time period. For instance, ProQuest Global Newsstream houses archives between 1991 until 2017, and Factiva newsstand searches span the latest two weeks.

Andreadis also said that a WSJ membership allows students to access the same content C-suite executives use on a daily basis.

Severinghaus added that after conducting target market research, The WSJ found that students “don’t want dumbed-down content, don’t want youthful content, don’t want anything geared specifically toward their age group; they want the full WSJ experience.”

Further, a WSJ membership allows students to receive content tailored to their interests by opting into newsletters specially curated by WSJ journalists, Andreadis said.

According to Andreadis, a WSJ subscription allows each member to enter into the WSJ community withWSJ+, a premium global membership program. Through WSJ+, The WSJ offers its subscribers free access to events hosted by partner organizations.

Andreadis said that a WSJ membership is beneficial for Stanford students who seek preparation for the professional world.  The WSJ publishes interview tips, workplace advice and articles outlining top companies to work for, which Andreadis pitched as providing necessary guidance for a student seeking to enter the workforce after college.

“We’re more than just an in-class resource,” Andreadis said. “We’re more of a personal, professional development tool that not only faculty and staff have access to but students as well.”

 

This article has been updated to include a WSJ membership subscription link for Stanford affiliates. 

 

Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that The Wall Street Journal offered the University “complementary”, not complimentary, subscriptions. The Daily regrets the error.

 

Contact Alex Tsai at aotsai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Alex Tsai ’21 is a senior staff writer for The Daily. Previous roles at The Daily include news desk editor and mobile app developer. Alex is majoring in Computer Science and is a member of the varsity lacrosse team.

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