Content area
Full Text
JSTOR: A History. By Robert C. Schonfeld. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. xxxiv + 412 pp. Index, appendix, figures, illustrations. Cloth, $29.95. ISBN: 0-691-11531-1.
Robert Schonfeld's JSTOR: A History details the early history of one of the most notable academic success stories of the past decade-the creation of an important and widely used digital archive of academic publications, one that now includes works in dozens of fields in business and the arts and sciences. The story actually begins in the 1980s, when academic libraries were being overwhelmed financially and physically in their attempt to keep up with an exploding number of journal subscriptions. Ironically, technical innovations in computerized printing had rendered journal production relatively less expensive than before, but part of their effect was to make it easier and cheaper for new journals to get underway. University libraries, struggling to be comprehensive, were forced to acquire subscriptions in growing numbers, and with some journals entering their second century of publication, storing back runs was becoming a nightmare. Microfilm had been enthusiastically promoted by corporate vendors for decades, but it had proven expensive and inconvenient, and the quality of library copies was often poor. The idea of a digital library...