JSTOR has launched a new Labs team charged with partnering with libraries and scholars to build innovative tools for research and teaching. The JSTOR Labs team has successfully used ‘flash builds’ – high-intensity, short-burst, user-driven development efforts – in order to bring an idea from conception to a working, user-delighting prototype in as little as a week. In this talk the presenter will describe the approach to flash builds, highlight the partnerships, skills, tools and content that help to innovate, and suggest ways that libraries can adopt these methods to support innovation and the digital humanities.

1. OF LIBRARIES & LABS:
EFFECTING USER-DRIVEN INNOVATION
11-12 April 2016
Alex Humphreys, JSTOR Labs
@abhumphreys
UKSG Annual Conference 2016

2. 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.
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.

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. CASE STUDY #1:
JSTOR SNAP

5. ONE WEEK IN ANN ARBOR…
https://vimeo.com/120185616

6. labs.jstor.org/snap

7. CASE STUDY #2:
JSTOR SUSTAINABILITY

8. ONE WEEK IN SEATTLE…
https://vimeo.com/140958596

9. labs.jstor.org/sustainability

10. WORKING
WITH TOPICS
• JSTOR Thesaurus: a controlled vocabulary
w/ 48,000+ unique terms
• Subject matter experts reviewed and
extended the branches dealing with
Sustainability
• With their input, we created
~750 topic pages, ranging from
acid rain to zoogeography
• Next up: incorporate into primary JSTOR
site
• New “Sustainability collection” for libraries,
consisting of new-to-JSTOR journals and
research reports
• Extend beyond Sustainability
https://public.tableau.com/profile/beth.dufford#!/vizhome/JSTORSustainabilityTopics/Story1

11. CASE STUDY #3:
UNDERSTANDING
SHAKESPEARE

12. PARTNERSHIP
WITH FOLGER
• Open, collaborative partnership with Folger
Shakespeare Library
• Folger had:
- Shakespeare Quarterly
- Folger Digital Texts
- Scholars and students
• JSTOR had:
- Full run of SQ
- 2,000 more journals
- A new Labs team
• Flash Build - September, 2014:
- From ideation to working site
- One week at the Folger in DC

13. labs.jstor.org/shakespeare

14. MATCHMAKER
ALGORITHM
• Quotation-finding algorithm that powers
Understanding Shakespeare
• Open and public API to all Understanding
Shakespeare data
• In progress:
- Apply Matchmaker to other texts (e.g. U.S.
Constitution, Divine Comedy)
- Generic Matchmaker API
labs.jstor.org/developers

15. HOW WE DO IT

16. Understand what innovation looks like
Desirable
Image source: http://uxtraordinary.com/venn-pie-agram/

17. Create a safe space to innovate
Image source:
http://www.therisktoolboxshop.com/_blog/The_Risk_Management_Tool_Box_Blog/post/Funny_Safety_Sign/

18. Show work to users early and often
[need a pic of some sort here]
Still taken from http://labs.jstor.org/blog/#!labs_week-building_jstor_snap

19. Iterayte.
Iterrate.
Itterate.
Iterate.
Iterate!
(rapidly)

20. Prior to the Flash Build
1. User interviews
2. Create the data & infrastructure
During the Flash Build
3. Design jam
4. Paper prototypes
5. Low-fi prototypes
6. Working site
After the Flash Build
7. Polish & clean up
8. Release & measure
WHAT WE LEARN, WHEN
User Input!
Who are they?
What can we
do that will
help them?
How can we make
our implementation
even better?
How should we
implement it?
How’d we do?

21. LESSONS
FOR LIBRARIES
(AND MAYBE PUBLISHERS TOO)

22. 1. Doing something is better than talking about it.

23. 2. It’s nice to hear someone say,
“Ohmigod, this is amazing!”

24. 3. If you go fast enough, you can
help people break out of old patterns.

25. 4. This work suggests better ways
to support digital humanities:
- tools and content together
- a model for partnering with scholars
- lower barrier of entry to DH
- start your own lab, adopt these practices in an
existing team, or find a partner*
* Like JSTOR Labs!

26. THANK YOU
Alex Humphreys
Director, JSTOR Labs
ITHAKA
http://labs.jstor.org
@abhumphreys
alex.humphreys@ithaka.org
Further Reading
• The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
• Business Model Generation,
Osterwalder & Pigneur
• Marty Cagan’s Blog: svpg.com/articles
• Sprint, Knapp, Zeratsky, & Kowitz

27. APPENDIX A
DETAILS ON
JSTOR’S FORTHCOMING
SUSTAINABILITY COLLECTION

28. THE
SUSTAINABILITY
COLLECTION
» A new curated multidisciplinary collection
of 100 new-to-JSTOR journals drawn from
more than 20 disciplines
» Enhanced by research reports from over
40 leading think tanks around the world
» Tested and built in partnership with
librarians and scholars
» Complemented by the strong base of
content already in JSTOR – more than
200,000 articles from roughly 45
publications in the JSTOR Corpus that
address various issues in sustainability
» Enriched by specialized tools geared to the
interdisciplinary research

29. TOPIC
COVERAGE
»Sustainable Business Practices
»Environmental Engineering
»Environmental Studies
»Environmental Science
»Environmental and Natural
Resources Law
»Energy Policy and Economics
»Urban Planning and the Built
Environment
»Development Studies
»Climatology and Atmospheric
Science
»Human Ecology
»Green Energy
»Transportation and
Infrastructure
»Land Conservation
»Environmental History
»Food Security
»Agricultural Economics
»Public Health and Population
Studies
»Water Management
»Waste Management

30. CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS BY
DISCIPLINE
• Economics
Energy Journal, International
Association for Energy Economics
Journal of the Association of
Environmental and Resource
Economists, University of Chicago
Press
American Journal of Agricultural
Economics, Agricultural & Applied
Economics Association
• Architecture / Built Env.
APT Bulletin, Association for
Preservation Technology
International
CTBUH Journal, Council on Tall
Buildings and Urban Habitat
Built Environment (1978-),
Alexandrine Press
• Public Health
Journal of Public Health Policy
Sustainability, Palgrave Macmillan
Journals
Environmental Health Perspectives,
Brogan & Partners
Occupational and Environmental
Medicine, BMJ Publishing Group
• Aquatic / Env. Sciences
Journal, American Water Works
Association
Opflow, American Water Works
Association
Water Environment Research,
Water Environment Federation
Waterlines, Practical Action
Publishing

31. CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS BY
DISCIPLINE
• Law
Natural Resources & Environment,
American Bar Association
Carbon & Climate Law Review,
Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
Ecology Law Quarterly, University
of California, Berkeley
Journal of Land Use &
Environmental Law, Florida State
University College of Law
• Sociology
Environmental Values, White
Horse Press
Nature and Culture, Berghahn
Books
Environment & Society, Berghahn
Books
• Urban Studies
Urban Studies, Sage Publications,
Ltd.
Ekistics, Athens Center of Ekistics
• Ecology
Ecological Applications, Ecological
Society of America
Ecological Restoration, University
of Wisconsin Press
Human Ecology, Springer Science
+ Business Media
Conservation Biology, Wiley
Subscription Services, Inc.

32. APPENDIX B
OPEN IN CASE OF
NO INTERNET CONNECTION