Supporting Digital Scholarship

“My position at MUSE was created in late 1996, in large part to respond to the unexpected demand from libraries well beyond the originally anticipated audience. I’ll never forget when, during the interview process, Marie Hansen mentioned that the initial business plan assumed the market for the product was not much more than the 100 or so ARL libraries in the US and Canada. It was pretty amazing to everyone back then that we suddenly had consortia all over the U.S. and the world—as well as many libraries who did not traditionally acquire university press journal content, such as community colleges and high schools—wanting to know how they could get access to MUSE.

“In hindsight, this enthusiasm from libraries was certainly gratifying but hardly surprising. MUSE started as a partnership with a library, and I’m proud that we’ve made libraries our essential partners ever since. We listen to our customers’ changing needs and concerns, remain mindful of their financial and structural challenges, approach product development and pricing with the shared goal of improving access and the user experience while controlling expenses. The opportunity to work hand in hand with our library partners, to achieve so many mutual benefits over so many years, has been incredibly satisfying.

“I’ve benefitted immensely from learning from so many talented and wise colleagues across our community. I came to the job with a background in marketing communications and intellectual property, having worked in the music and electronic entertainment industries (the latter just a fancy way of saying video games!), but I quickly received crash courses in scholarly publishing from my JHU Press co-workers, and in library and information services from our JHU library partners and generous and patient customers. More than two decades later, I still feel as though I learn something new nearly every day. I couldn’t ask for a more energizing, enriching, or rewarding professional life than I’ve had with Project MUSE, and I’ve loved the opportunity to grow my career along with the organization.”

—Melanie Schaffner

“Marie Hansen had taken the JHUP journals program and really built it, and that strong program was key to MUSE’s success. She really cared about MUSE and knew that it had to grow in order to be sustainable. Marie hired Melanie Schaffner, and Melanie figured out how to sell to library consortia. That was huge. There were a lot of Mellon projects that didn’t survive. But MUSE did!”

—Liz Brown, Project MUSE staff member since 1998