Just as new forms of high-quality scientific data lead to new scientific discoveries, new forms of high-quality metadata lead to new methods of scholarly research. JSTOR Labs builds experimental tools for research and teaching on top of the JSTOR digital library of academic journals and books. In doing so, they leverage the scale of JSTOR’s corpus, JSTOR’s strong and consistent metadata, and natural language processing and other machine learning methods to extend this metadata in new directions. In this talk, I’ll showcase some of the award-winning research tools JSTOR Labs has built and describe the metadata foundation that enables these new forms of academic research.

1. Alex Humphreys
@abhumphreys
DHUGE 2019
November 8, 2019
Enabling New
Methods of Discovery

2. ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic
community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record
and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit
digital library of academic
journals, books, and
primary sources.
Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit
research and consulting
service that helps academic,
cultural, and publishing
communities thrive in the
digital environment.
Portico is a not-for-profit
preservation service for
digital publications, including
electronic journals, books,
and historical collections.
Artstor provides 2+ million
high-quality images and
digital asset management
software to enhance
scholarship and teaching.

3. JSTOR Labs works with partner publishers,
libraries and labs to create tools for
researchers, teachers and students that are
immediately useful – and a little bit magical.

4. THE
FOUNDATION

5. JSTOR
OUR HISTORY
JSTOR was created in 1995 to help libraries address cost
issues and save on shelf space.
JSTOR helped libraries to repurpose space, share the costs of digital
storage and preservation, and spread access for users.
Since JSTOR’s launch in 1997, we have continued to expand the
platform, adding current journals, books, and primary sources.

6. JSTOR
WHERE ARE WE TODAY?
More than 10,000 libraries from 170+ countries
currently provide access to JSTOR.
Content has been consistently added since JSTOR’s launch. More
than 79 million pages of journal content are now available and
preserved.

7. USAGE
DRIVER
www.jstor.org
Multiple studies have shown that
the same document or article
gets as much as three times the
usage on the JSTOR platform as
it does on another platform.
WHY?

8. QUALITY:
CURATION
JSTOR has been thoughtful
about curating a collections of
high-quality scholarly
literature.

9. QUALITY:
AUGMENTATION
From the start, JSTOR has
invested in enhancing its
content with strong metadata

11. AUGMENTATION
IS NEVER DONE
JSTOR continues to improve
the metadata of the content
within its collection.

12. JSTOR THESAURUS

13. BUILDING
ON THIS
FOUNDATION

14. JSTOR Labs works with partner publishers,
libraries and labs to create tools for
researchers, teachers and students that are
immediately useful – and a little bit magical.

15. SO WHAT’S A
JSTOR LABS
***DO***???

16. HORIZONS OF INNOVATION
Horizon 1 Horizons 2 & 3
• Horizon 1 = core business
• Innovation usually seeks
operational efficiencies
• You know the market, the
product, etc.
• You can make reasonable
predictions about both
cost to develop and how
market will react
• Horizons 2 & 3 = new
products, new markets &
new businesses
• “If you build it, they will
come.”
• You don’t even know
what “it” is
• Or who “they” are
Horizons framework:
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-three-horizons-of-growth
http://blog.hypeinnovation.com/using-the-three-horizons-framework-for-innovation

17. Q: If H2 and H3 are so uncertain,
how do you find your way to a
sustainable new product or business?
The Design Squiggle, by Damien Newman:
http://cargocollective.com/central/The-Design-Squiggle/

18. A: Lots of short iterations + lots of
user feedback = speeding up the
learning cycle
Innovation isn’t one big “Eureka,”
it’s a thousand little ones.

19. REIMAGINING
THE MONOGRAPH
Can we improve the
experience and value of
long-form scholarship?
Aug-Sep: User Research
Oct: Workshop
Nov: Build Prototype
Dec: Release Paper/Prototype

20. labs.jstor.org/topicgraph
TOPICGRAPH
Understand at a glance the topics covered in a book.
Jump straight to pages about topics you’re researching.

21. TEXT ANALYZER
www.jstor.org/analyze

22. THE JSTOR UNDERSTANDING SERIES
www.jstor.org/understand

23. INTERVIEW ARCHIVE
labs.jstor.org/interview

24. TOPICGRAPH
TEXT ANALYZER
UNDERSTANDING
SERIES
INTERVIEW ARCHIVE

25. TOPICGRAPH
TEXT ANALYZER
UNDERSTANDING
SERIES
INTERVIEW ARCHIVE
Enabling Technologies
Natural Language Processing
Topic Modeling
Entity Extraction
Fuzzy Text Matching
Machine Learning
Linked Open Data
Knowledge Graph
WikiData

26. Enabling Technologies
Natural Language Processing
Topic Modeling
Entity Extraction
Fuzzy Text Matching
Machine Learning
Linked Open Data
Knowledge Graph
WikiData
JSTOR THESAURUS

27. Thank you
Alex Humphreys
Director, JSTOR Labs
ITHAKA
labs.jstor.org
@abhumphreys
alex.humphreys@ithaka.org