Tradition and Protean Nature--Journals and Scholarly Communication: A Review Essay

JSTOR: A History. By Roger C. Schonfeld. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. xxxiv, 412 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0-691-11531-1.

"Devant le Déluge" and Other Essays on Early Modern Scientific Communication. By David A. Kronick. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. iii–x, 335 pp. $54.95. ISBN 0-8108-5003-6.

Since the advent of scholarly publishing many years ago scholars have relied upon the existence of rationalized venues for their scientific research and scholarship. Indeed, professional life, if not existence, may well depend upon a foundation free of destructive intrusion or philistine interests. As libraries have attempted to cope with rising costs of serials and library service, journals have seen massive increases in costs along a long spectrum of economic measurement. Stresses and concerted attempts at keeping the economic whirlwinds from blowing away the temple of knowledge have left many libraries holding their own, only to wonder within the inner sanctum what remains to be seen. Not long ago a masterful and deeply committed attempt to meet at least some of academe's needs led to a rebirth, in nearly Alexandrine terms, of scholarship, at least as it manifested itself in journal form. Many journals have inhabited the shelving ranges of many libraries only to be lost, in a purely illusory sense. Dusty and lost to memory, titles such as Mind and the American Historical Review were relegated to a shadow life on shelves and in library facilities not often visited.

Today such is no longer the case—and for very excellent reasons. If the above scenario is a little overdrawn, it remains closer tothe truth than not. As JSTOR has grown in use and more titles have been added at specific intervals, the richly layered database functions essentially as an Internet universe of peer-reviewed—thus, in Pierre Bourdieu's terminology, sanctified—journals.¹ Scholarly sanctification alone does not offer perennial existence, intellectualrespectability, or use, but it does speak to the power of electronic archival storage and philosophy of access. Were it not for the dream and courage of scholarly visionaries, the slowly dust-ridden existence, no matter how neglected, would be another less than elegant story. In JSTOR: A History Roger C. Schonfeld, on staff at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers a systematic and well-articulated narrative recounting early musings over storage, electronic archival possibilities, economic necessity, and entrepreneurship. Schonfeld traces the historical events surrounding and animating the evolution of JSTOR, institutionally and economically, drawing upon internal resources. Tables and narrative replete with illustrative details and examples frame an essentially administrative account of an entrepreneurial venture under academic institutional conditions. Successfully and at times delicately handled permutations and negotiations make this account useful.

The primary mover of JSTOR as a venture was William G. Bowen, president emeritus of Princeton University, who has contributed mightily to concerns of higher education in the United States. Schonfeld begins his narrative with the initial purpose of JSTOR meeting the needs of storage and the necessity of addressing institutional cost attendant to library and storage construction. Indeed, infrastructure was very much in evidence, and JSTOR satisfied the need to obviate further investment in physical facilities and planning. The narrative continues with a discussion of the inner deliberations, concerns, and objectives of JSTOR. Schonfeld offers a history firmly based in the rich primary sources of the major actors and the foundation in question. The final triumph and success of JSTOR diverge from the original intention of storage to the phenomenon of scholarly dissemination of knowledge. JSTOR's nonprofit profile and its essential importance to academia are delineated with a reasoned approach and interest.

Scholarly and scientific research culture manifests itself within the printed page, whether electronically delivered or in movable type. JSTOR offers added value to the scholarly communication stream by resuscitating the very vehicles by which ideas and concepts as well as memory flow. Without...