Reflections on Shared Infrastructure and Distinctive Collections
Roger Schonfeld reflects on lessons from more than 20 years conducting research and supporting the work of libraries, publishers, and the research enterprise.
Roger C. Schonfeld is the managing director for JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services. Launched in 2025, JSTOR Stewardship is a service through which libraries can manage, preserve, and provide access to their archives and special collections, with transformative opportunities to accelerate their collections processing productivity and to increase their collections’ usage and impact. Roger is also responsible for ITHAKA’s overall organizational strategy.
Throughout his career, much of Roger’s work has focused on innovation and sustainability for the shared infrastructure that makes possible the work of libraries, publishers, museums, and the research enterprise. At Ithaka S+R, Roger developed research and advisory programs that helped libraries and publishers transform their service offerings based on the needs of users and changes in the information marketplace.
Roger is an author of the 2024 Ithaka S+R report on “The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing: Strategic Context and Shared Infrastructure.” With Deanna Marcum, he wrote Along Came Google: A History of Library Digitization (Princeton University Press, 2021), examining structural impediments to digital strategy and the role of an outside catalyst in fostering digitization among research libraries. He also wrote JSTOR: A History (Princeton, 2003), focusing on the development of a sustainable not-for-profit initiative for the digitization and preservation of scholarly texts.
Roger blogs regularly about libraries and publishing at the Scholarly Kitchen and currently serves as a board member for the Center for Research Libraries. Previously, he has served on the NSF Blue Ribbon Task Force for Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access and NISO’s Open Discovery Initiative. Roger has testified before the US House of Representatives on government publishing, advocating for strong approaches to digital preservation.
Roger was previously a research associate at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. There, he collaborated on The Game of Life: College Sports and Academic Values with James Shulman and William G. Bowen (Princeton, 2000). He was an Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellow and received degrees in library and information science from Syracuse University and in English Literature from Yale University.
Roger Schonfeld reflects on lessons from more than 20 years conducting research and supporting the work of libraries, publishers, and the research enterprise.
Today, Roger Schonfeld examines several key drivers transforming the monographs marketplace and reflects on strategic opportunities ahead.
Molecular Connections has purchased Morressier. Analysis from Roger C. Schonfeld.
Analysis from Roger Schonfeld on today’s news that Silverchair is buying ScholarOne from Clarivate, a transaction that realigns infrastructure and allows each to focus on its strengths.
We have developed a tool to track publisher deals to license scholarly content for use as training data by LLMs
Several weeks ago, the Internet Archive lost its appeal of the lawsuit brought by a group of publishers opposed to its controlled digital lending programs. Roger Schonfeld examines what can be learned from this fair use defeat.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Wendy Queen, Director, Project MUSE, a leading provider of digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community around the world.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Richard Jefferson, founder of The Lens, which enables discovery and analysis for scholarly works, patents, and patent sequences.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Laurie G. Arp of Lyrasis, whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials interview, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Tracey Armstrong of CCC, the information solutions provider to organizations around the world.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Will Schweitzer of SilverChair, the independent platform partner for scholarly and professional publishers.
Today, Roger Schonfeld argues that there are scholarly communication priorities that merit focus beyond price, value, and openness and which require cross-sector collaboration.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Lauren Kane of BioOne, a community-based platform that provides global distribution for more than 350 journals and eBooks in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Alicia Wise of CLOCKSS, the digital archive for academic publishers and research libraries.
In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Kate Wittenberg and Karen Hanson of Portico, the community-supported preservation archive.