JSTOR: A History/ Roger C. Schonfeld

Ten years ago, most scholars and students relied on bulky card catalogs, printed bibliographic indices, and hardcopy books and journals. today, much content is available electronically or online. This book examines the history of one of the first, and most successful, digital resources for scholarly communication, JSTOR.

THE IDEA AT DENISON, THE PROJECT AT MELLON

DECEMBER 1993-JANUARY 1994

WE BEGIN in late 1993, when a discussion before the Board of Trustees of Denison University alerted one trustee, William G. Bowen, to the possible demand for a digital library of scholarly journals. Shared with colleagues at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, of which he was president, and beyond, the initial idea matured rapidly into the basis for a major project. This chapter summarizes the influences that led Bowen to his idea, and it illustrates both how much thought went into the development of the proposed project and how rapidly the project began to congeal.

Denison University is an academically selective liberal arts college in Ohio, and Doane Library is one of the key landmarks on its beautiful campus. By the early 1990s, Doane's overcrowded and often-inaccessible stacks were no longer adequate. Denison's books, journals, and other library collections had filled all of the available space. There was no room to store new materials acquired for the collection. Responding to this need, the administration added the expansion of Doane Library to a list of capital projects on the horizon that it presented to the board of trustees in late 1993. President Michele Tolela Myers had to ask the board to find funds for a substantial and expensive library expansion.
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