Home About Me My Calendar My Diagrams My Garden Going Green My Research Activities My Research Publications

Hypermedia Online Publishing: the Transformation of the Scholarly Journal

8.3.2 Origins and organisation

Librarians have complained for a long time about the rising cost of STM materials and the need to regain some control of the scholarly literature. Highwire grew out of that frustration. When Mike Keller came to Stanford four years ago, he was active in some committees with Robert Simoni, Professor of Biological Sciences and 'Godfather' of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Online. The decision to create JBC Online came out of their shared interests and discussions. JBC (the print version) and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology shared equally in the development costs of bringing it up. Senior university management knew what Highwire were doing and were (and are) actively supportive. At Stanford entrepreneurial ventures are encouraged, and the 'Silicon Valley startup' nature of Highwire fitted well into this. The origins of Highwire were summarised by Vicky Reich as 'Right person, right time, right technology'. It should be emphasised that Highwire operated from the start on very short development cycles and has rewritten its systems three times in the last two and a half years to stay current.

Last modified: Monday, 11-Dec-2017 14:41:17 AEDT