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ITHAKA HARBORS INC
NEW YORK, NY · EIN 133857105 · Form 990 · FY2023 · NTEE V30 · Social Science · Very Large (>$50M) · ithaka.org
revenue
$106.0M
expenses
$117.2M
net assets
$164.7M
employees
469
program ratio
92%
profile · synthesized from sources

ITHAKA HARBORS INC is a nonprofit organization advancing access to and preservation of digital scholarly content. It operates Portico, a digital archive ensuring long-term access to e-journals and e-books; Artstor, which supports teaching and research with digital media collections; and Ithaka S+R, which conducts research and develops strategies for higher education. The organization serves libraries, publishers, scholars, and students globally through collaborative, technology-driven services.

irs program accomplishments · form 990 part iii · fy2023

What they reported doing

  1. #1 primary $6.14M
    PORTICO - SEE SCHEDULE OPORTICO IS A COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED PRESERVATION ARCHIVE THAT SAFEGUARDS ACCESS TO E-JOURNALS, E-BOOKS, AND DIGITAL COLLECTIONS. OUR UNIQUE, TRUSTED PROCESS ENSURES THAT THE CONTENT WE PRESERVE WILL REMAIN ACCESSIBLE AND USABLE FOR RESEARCHERS, SCHOLARS, AND STUDENTS IN THE FUTURE. PORTICO PRESERVES AN EXTENSIVE SET OF CONTENT IN ITS ARCHIVE: MORE THAN 2.5 BILLION FILES, COMPOSED OF 96 MILLION JOURNAL ARTICLES, 1.6 MILLION EBOOKS, AND 8.2 MILLION ITEMS FROM DIGITAL COLLECTIONSTOTALING 560 TB. THIS INCLUDES SCHOLARLY CONTENT FROM 86 COUNTRIES AND A GROWING SET OF ARCHIVES OF UNDERREPRESENTED VOICES, ENSURING THAT RESEARCH FROM A BROAD RANGE OF CULTURES AND PERSPECTIVES WILL REMAIN ACCESSIBLE TO USERS FOR THE LONG TERM. PORTICO NOW HAS MORE THAN 1,285 PARTICIPATING LIBRARIES WHO, ALONG WITH MORE THAN 1,079 PARTICIPATING PUBLISHERS, ALLOW US TO MEET OUR MISSION OF ENSURING THAT SCHOLARLY CONTENT REMAINS USABLE, AUTHENTIC, DISCOVERABLE, AND ACCESSIBLE. SUCH BROAD COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND COLLABORATION ALLOWS US TO PROVIDE LONG-TERM DIGITAL PRESERVATION IN A COST-EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINABLE WAY.
  2. #2 $8.14M
    ITHAKA S+R - SEE SCHEDULE OITHAKA S+R PROVIDES COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIES AND RESEARCH FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE ARTS. WE PARTNER WITH FOUNDATIONS, CONSORTIA, AND INDIVIDUAL INSTITUTIONS TO SEEK SOLUTIONS AND INFORM POLICIES IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENT. OUR ACTION-ORIENTED RESEARCH SUPPORTS INSTITUTIONAL DECISION-MAKING, AND OUR ORGANIZATION ACTS AS A HUB TO PROMOTE AND GUIDE COLLABORATION ACROSS THE COMMUNITIES WE SERVE. WITH OUR PARTNERS, WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE PROJECTS THAT MAKE HIGHER EDUCATION, SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION, AND CULTURAL COLLECTIONS MORE ACCESSIBLE TO DIVERSE POPULATIONS. OUR EXTENSIVE, FREELY ACCESSIBLE LIBRARY INCLUDES 200+ RESEARCH REPORTS AND ISSUE BRIEFS, AND 500+ BLOG POSTS. IN ADDITION TO PROGRAM SERVICE REVENUE OF $2,462,561 REPORTED IN PART VIII, LINE 2C, ITHAKA RECEIVED GRANT REVENUE OF $4,327,291 ALLOCABLE TO ITHAKA S+R REPORTED IN PART VIII, LINE 1E AND 1F.
named programs · 4 · from sources

What they call their work

Artstor
Digital library of high-quality images and media management software (JSTOR Forum) supporting teaching and research in arts and humanities.
Ithaka S+R
Research and strategy initiative partnering with institutions and foundations to inform policies and practices in higher education, scholarly communication, and cultural collections.
JSTOR
Digital library providing access to millions of academic journal articles, books, and primary sources, supporting research and education across disciplines.
Portico
Community-supported digital preservation archive safeguarding access to e-journals, e-books, and digital collections for libraries and publishers, ensuring long-term usability for researchers and students.
activities · 8 groups

What they do

  • Archival Digitization and Preservation 7 activities
    • Delivering digital library access and media management tools
      Provides access to millions of high-quality digital images through the Artstor Digital Library and offers media management software (JSTOR Forum) to help institutions catalog, manage, and distribute digital media collections. Provides access to digital library collections for millions of students, teachers, and researchers across 180 countries through digital platforms.
    • Deploying AI-powered archival processing tools
      Provides JSTOR Seeklight, an AI-powered tool that accelerates processing of archival collections, used by libraries and archives at over 40 institutions.
    • Digitizing and disseminating underrepresented scholarship
      Digitized and made 700 out-of-print scholarly titles from El Colegio de México Press available as Open Access to support dissemination of Latin American scholarship.
    • Engaging libraries and publishers in collaborative digital preservation
      Engages more than 1,285 libraries and 1,079 publishers in a collaborative digital preservation network to ensure long-term access to scholarly content.
    • Operating Path to Open for university press book accessibility
      Operates Path to Open, a program enabling university press books to transition to open access after 2–3 years, with participating libraries gaining early access. Launched a pilot with university press partners, engaged nearly 300 libraries and over 50 university presses, and plans to make 1,000 scholarly books open access by the end of 2026. Observed a 440% increase in global usage of books after they transitioned to open access.
    • Preserving digital news content for research access
      Leads a news preservation pilot to archive digital news content from 34 outlets, ensuring long-term access for researchers.
    • Providing digital preservation and stewardship services
      Launched JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services to support academic, research, and cultural institutions in sharing, preserving, and managing digital collections. Preserves more than 2.5 billion digital files, including 96 million journal articles, 1.6 million e-books, and 8.2 million digital collection items, totaling 560 TB, to ensure long-term access for researchers and students.
  • AI Governance and Ethical Research 2 activities
    • Conducting research on AI in scholarly communications and higher education
      Establishes a practice area focused on ensuring AI in research and publishing meets scholarly standards for integrity, provenance, rights awareness, and transparency. Conducts research and advising to expand access to higher education and improve outcomes for students and researchers, with a specific focus on advancing the responsible use of AI in scholarly communications.
    • Supporting responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in higher education
      Supports 100 higher education institutions in adopting artificial intelligence responsibly and convenes state and higher education system leaders to develop initiatives and tools that improve credit transfer and support credential completion for working adults.
  • College Access and Success Support 1 activity
    • Advancing equity in postsecondary education through national partnerships
      Advances Pell Grant recipient enrollment and postsecondary value through participation in the American Talent Initiative and supports efforts to increase access to quality educational resources for incarcerated students.
  • Economic and Financial Research 1 activity
    • Conducting economic and policy research in higher education
      Conducts research on the economic impact of liberal arts education and publishes findings such as the importance of selective colleges investing in veteran students. Produces more than 200 research reports and issue briefs and over 500 blog posts freely available to support institutional decision-making and policy development.
  • Student and User Data Privacy & Security 1 activity
    • Ensuring data privacy and security compliance
      Implements passwords, physical and managerial security measures, and encryption to protect personal information, adhering to SOC 2 information security standards, and conducts annual external audits to maintain compliance with SOC 2 framework safeguards. Collects and uses personal information to support access to ITHAKA Websites and Services, ensuring data relevance, accuracy, and compliance with intended use.
  • Prison and Jail Literacy Support 1 activity
    • Expanding access to JSTOR for incarcerated learners
      Made JSTOR available in 1,000 prisons and leads the Library Services to the Justice Involved (LSJI) Roundtable to coordinate services and strategies for justice-involved learners.
  • Educator Conferences & Professional Development Events 1 activity
    • Hosting leadership convenings in higher education and scholarly communications
      Hosts an annual invitational event for leaders at partner organizations to discuss challenges and strategies in higher education and scholarly communications and supports research and academic library leaders in adapting to changes in funding and policy.
  • Uncategorized 3 activities
    • Developing tools for student credit transfer and re-enrollment
      Launched a national, nonprofit credit mobility website and developed Transfer Explorer, a tool that helps students identify credit transfer pathways, reducing time and cost to degree completion. Launched the Ohio College Comeback Compact to remove barriers to student re-enrollment.
    • Funding digitization and open access initiatives for academic collections
      Provides direct funding and infrastructure support to charter institutions for digitization, large-scale processing through JSTOR Seeklight, and open publication on JSTOR to expand discovery and use of distinctive collections. Received a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand access to JSTOR for incarcerated college students and another grant from the same foundation to support JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services and public access to distinctive collections.
    • Releasing benchmarking research for library leadership
      Releases the triennial US Library Directors Survey Report to inform strategic decision-making in academic libraries.
financials · form 990 · fy2023
revenue
Total revenue$106.03M
Contributions & grants$4.42M4%
Program service revenue$97.56M92%
Investment income$4.17M4%
Other revenue$-116K
expenses
Total expenses$117.20M
Program expenses92%
Admin / overhead8%
Fundraising0%
Salaries & benefits$68.27M
Grants paid out$0
Largest expense lineCompensation
balance sheet
Total assets$342.16M
Cash$19.69M
Investments$287.51M
Liabilities$177.49M
Net assets$164.67M
Liquid reserves31.4 mo
2 years on record · 2020–2023 · YoY revenue -0.9%
leadership · form 990 part vii · fy2023

Who runs it

paid leadership · 25
NameTitleHours/wkCompensation
KEVIN GUTHRIE TRUSTEE & PRESIDENT 40 $685K
REBECCA SEGER VICE PRESIDENT, IPSP 40 $421K
MICHELLE LEE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER 40 $413K
NANCY KOPANS VP, GENERAL COUNSEL & SECRETARY 40 $409K
CATHARINE HILL MANAGING DIRECTOR, ITHAKA S+R 36 $401K
GERARD AURIGEMMA THRU 52023 CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER & TREASURER 40 $377K
ROBERT HETERICK SVP, OPEN COLLECT & INFRA 40 $374K
JOHN LENAHAN VP, PUBLISHED CONTENT 40 $373K
MATT MACQUEEN VP, PRODUCT & DESIGN 40 $369K
DALE MYERS CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER 40 $356K
KATE WITTENBERG MANAGING DIRECTOR, PORTICO 40 $337K
JABIN WHITE THRU 92023 VP, CONTENT MANAGEMENT 40 $335K
HARMONY FAUST VP, MARKETING 40 $335K
SEYMOUR DOUGLAS VP, DATA & ANALYTICS 40 $324K
ALEX HUMPHREYS VP, INNOVATION 40 $320K
MARTIN KURZWEIL VP, EDUC TRANSF S+R 40 $308K
ROGER SCHONFELD VP, ORG STRATEGY & LSCM 40 $296K
HEIDI BARTOLACCI VP, COMMUNICATIONS 30 $278K
DEBORA BARRETT VP, WORK LIFE & CULTURE 40 $277K
RONALD SNYDER JR DIR, RESEARCH & DEV 40 $276K
ARIELLE ALI START 52023 CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER & TREASURER 40 $242K
CURTIS L KENDRICK TRUSTEE 2 $5K
DR CLAUDIA V SCHRADER TRUSTEE 2 $5K
PETER J DOUGHERTY TRUSTEE 2 $5K
STEVEN G POSKANZER ITHAKA CHAIR 2 $5K
relationships · 20

Who they work with

  • 1,079 participating publishers Network — Publishers that collaborate with Portico to preserve and ensure long-term access to digital scholarly content.
  • 1,285 participating libraries Network — Libraries that collaborate with Portico to preserve and ensure long-term access to digital scholarly content.
  • American Council of Learned Societies Partner — Co-designed the Path to Open program with ITHAKA and university presses to expand access to scholarly work.
  • American Talent Initiative Partner — Collaborates with the American Talent Initiative to advance Pell enrollment and postsecondary value.
  • Big Ten Academic Alliance Partner — Collaborates with ITHAKA on supporting open-access initiatives such as Reveal Digital.
  • Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums Partner — Collaborates to advance equity in art museums.
  • Black by God Partner — Participating news outlet in Portico-led digital news preservation pilot
  • Boston Library Consortium Partner — Member consortium whose institutions participate in Path to Open and report increased usage and value from the program.
  • Columbia Missourian Partner — Participating news outlet in Portico-led digital news preservation pilot
  • El Colegio de México Press Partner — Collaborated with ITHAKA to digitize and make 700 out-of-print titles openly accessible.
  • Hypothesis Partner — ITHAKA has invested in Hypothesis, an open-annotation platform, to support enhanced digital reading and collaboration.
  • Ithaka S+R Network — Subsidiary or program within ITHAKA HARBORS INC focused on research and analysis in higher education and scholarly communication.
  • JSTOR Network — JSTOR is part of ITHAKA's network, with its annual Publisher Meeting hosted following the Next Wave conference.
  • Newsberg Partner — Participating news outlet in Portico-led digital news preservation pilot
  • Princeton University Network — Connection through former Princeton president Bill Bowen, who introduced Kevin Guthrie to the poem that inspired ITHAKA's name.
  • TRUSTe Government — Third-party dispute resolution provider for privacy complaints, especially under GDPR
  • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Funder — Primary funder supporting JSTOR initiatives, including access for incarcerated students and digital stewardship services.
  • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Funder — Provided grant funding to support JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services and expand public access to distinctive collections.
  • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Funder — Provides funding for the JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services initiative.
  • University Press Partners Partner — Collaborates with JSTOR on the Path to Open books pilot to transition scholarly monographs to open access.
strategies · 5

How they approach the work

Named approaches extracted from this org’s sources. Where others share an approach, follow it to see the full set of orgs running it.

  • Collaborative Open Access Transition
    methodology: collaborative open access transition
    By aligning libraries, publishers, and authors in a shared model, we expand access to scholarly monographs, because coordinated stakeholder action reduces systemic barriers to open scholarship.
  • Community-Centered Technology Design
    methodology: community-centered design
    By involving stakeholders in the design and adoption of technology, we ensure tools meet real needs and advance equity, because inclusive development processes produce more effective and trusted systems.
  • Digitization to Impact Pathway
    methodology: digitization-to-impact pathway
    By digitizing and stewarding scholarly collections, we increase public access and long-term knowledge preservation, because sustained digital infrastructure enables broader engagement and reuse of critical academic resources.
  • Responsible AI in Scholarly Communication
    methodology: scholar-ready AI
    By ensuring AI tools adhere to scholarly values like integrity, provenance, and transparency, we improve trust and utility in research systems, because responsible design prevents misuse and strengthens academic norms.
  • Systems Strengthening Through Leadership Engagement
    methodology: systems-strengthening through leadership engagement
    By collaborating with institutional leaders and policymakers, we improve access and outcomes in higher education, because engaging decision-makers embeds equity and sustainability into institutional structures.