Supporting Digital Scholarship
Now and Always, The Trusted Content Your Research Requires
25 MUSE Makers
A JHUP veteran since 1989, MUSE’s longest serving staff member takes pride in her role as “mother hen” to staff and customers.
“I joined JHU Press in the summer of 1989, working in customer service and then in journals. I moved officially to Project MUSE just in time for the 1995 launch. Ellen Sauer, the MUSE manager, hired me and taught me what I needed to know about the internet in order to help MUSE’s first customers.
“At the beginning we had just a handful of journals, and we had to teach customers what MUSE was and how to use it. Among the early challenges was delivering MUSE to institutions with many different platforms and, of course, addressing general concerns about what MUSE meant for the future of print. Librarians were just as worried as people in publishing about delivering content online. What will happen to print? What will happen to my job if libraries don’t have books on shelves? Along with answering questions about billing, access, and doing research, I spent a lot of time hand-holding and reassuring customers in those days.
“Our staff, our product, and our vision have always been MUSE’s great strengths. Our staff has been amazing, and we’ve done so much with so few people. I’m proud of the quality of service we’ve provided over the years and the long-term relationships we’ve built with our subscribers.
“I’m like the mother hen. I’ve always felt comfortable providing feedback, and it’s been a pleasure to watch MUSE grow. I’m proud of twenty-five years of innovation.”
—Lora Czarnowsky
“Lora is a linchpin in MUSE’s success over the past 25 years. She was an invaluable resource to me when I first joined MUSE, barely a year into our first set of paid subscriptions, helping me get up to speed on our customers’ common concerns about access, licensing terms, agent billing, content archiving, and so much more. Subscription sales rely heavily on the support and service that customers receive after the first sale is made, and MUSE’s incredible 98% historical retention rate owes as much to Lora’s superb customer relationships as it does to any of our sales efforts. She’s a rock, both for our library clients and to MUSE staff, who rely on her deep knowledge of our systems, processes, and institutional history. I’m lucky and proud to have her as a colleague for all these years.”
—Melanie Schaffner, Project MUSE staff member since 1996
