Washington, D.C.
October 18-20, 1995

Building Partnerships that Shape the Future

Program Session II: Introduction

Convened by Jerry Campbell
President
ARL

For Program Session II we are fortunate to have two distinguished gentlemen to review the plans and strategic directions for the Journal Storage Project (JSTOR), a nonprofit, independent organization recently established with the assistance of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goal of this project is to provide and improve online electronic access to core scholarly journals through electronic replication and fax-like image creation.

As the JSTOR project evolved it became clear that the potential benefits to be gained exceeded original expectations. The possibility of linking electronic versions of current journals to the electronic versions of archive journals is of enormous interest to scholars. Our presenters for this session are here to discuss this and other benefits of the project, as well as the economic implications of such a venture.

Over the past several years ARL has enjoyed a fruitful partnership with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Foundation’s president, William Bowen, joins us today to brief us on some of the vexing economic problems that can be reduced, if not eliminated, by online electronic access.

Before taking the helm at the Foundation, Mr. Bowen served as Provost and then President of Princeton University. In fact, his career at Princeton spanned 29 years. He currently serves on the boards of many agencies, among them American Express, The Rockefeller Group, and the Reader’s Digest Association. He has also published dozens of book and articles on the economics of education and labor.

Bill will address the economics of scholarly communication as it relates to the Foundation’s recent experiences in replacing long runs of core journals with electronic access. Please help me thank him for coming to talk with us. Bill Bowen.