JSTOR: A History (review)

Author Roger C. Schonfeld, coordinator for research at Ithaka, a newly formed not-for-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education around the world, has written an excellent review of the gestation, growth, and development of JSTOR, the journals storage project begun in 1993. You will remember 1993 as a time when the Mosaic Web browser software had just been introduced, and dot.coms were a glimmer in entrepreneurs' eyes. Indeed, Mosaic is now a distant memory, and the dot.com bubble has burst. But JSTOR remains, steady, reliable, and essential.

The idea for JSTOR came from a library that was running out of space. Denison University in Granville, Ohio, a small, prestigious liberal arts college, made a request for expansion of its Doane Library. This request was added to the list of capital projects put before the university board of trustees, including William G. Bowen, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and president emeritus of Princeton University. Bowen had been studying academic libraries and the higher education market and was concerned that spiraling costs meant that libraries were collecting a decreasing percentage of the scholarly output. Many of these findings were published in 1992 in a study commissioned by The Mellon Foundation, University Libraries and ScholarlyCommunication (New York: Mellon Foundation, 1992). It was in this climate that Bowen conceived of the idea of JSTOR. Core journals, initially in the humanities and social sciences, would be digitized, allowing libraries to save space and take advantage of new technological efficiencies.

This book takes the reader step-by-step through the history of JSTOR, from its beginnings as a grant-funded Mellon Project searching for an operating partner (which it found in the University of Michigan) through securing core content, signing up publishers, and developing a pilot project. There was much to learn about scanning and digitizing material. Bowen and his colleagues at JSTOR thought that they would digitize from microfilm rather than print. They were to learn that print was the better alternative. They approached University Microfilms as their potential partner, but they ultimately turned elsewhere. Also, the method of scanning had to be determined, and indexing and searching capability had to be decided. It was in the indexing and searching capabilities that JSTOR made a significant contribution to scholarship and research. Because of the method of scanning and the decisions made about searchability of the text, JSTOR stands as a model for current and future projects.

As the project progressed, it became clear that a different organizational structure was needed to assure the continued viability of JSTOR. As librarians clamored for more and more and more core content, it was clear that the project required independence from Mellon. A member of Mellon's research staff, Kevin Guthrie, had just completed a financial and organizational study of the New York Historical Society. In June 1995, Guthrie became Mellon's JSTOR coordinator with a "mandate to bring JSTOR forward to independence." (p. 109) By July 31, 1995, JSTOR was incorporated as an independent not-for-profit.

In subsequent chapters, we follow the progress of JSTOR to independence and the structure of a business plan that developed the model of planning for charter members, as well as the production and distribution of the new database. Many hurdles had to be overcome for which there were no earlier experiences on which to draw. The fledgling operation was in entirely virgin territory.

By early 1997, 190 libraries had joined JSTOR, many more than Guthrie had hoped to sign. (p. 236-37) How did this happen in light of the fact that Guthrie was virtually unknown in library circles, JSTOR was an unknown product that was more a promise of content than actual content, and budgets in libraries were tighter than ever? The public relations story of the JSTOR "branding" told in these pages is impressive. Richard DeGennaro, emeritus director of the Harvard College Library and board member of JSTOR, stepped in personally...