Democratizing information and restoring access to knowledge

In our first decade, Mellon’s support for scholars was reflected in our grants to leading research libraries. This initial approach evolved into a focus on innovative tools and networks that can expand access to knowledge. Our most significant early investment in this area was JSTOR, a groundbreaking digital journal storage project that now provides free or low-cost access to over 12 million academic journal articles to more than 1,500 institutions globally—helping democratize access to a vast array of information. Today, we are investing in efforts to recognize and preserve knowledge that would otherwise be lost to history. Support for the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law, for instance, will create an inclusive digital record of racial terror in the American South, ensuring preservation of and public access to records of incidents that are thinly documented but nonetheless part of Americans’ shared history.

In the 1990s, Mellon’s belief in the value of research ultimately led us to establish our own in-house research apparatus, which we maintained until the mid-2000s. The work of this in-house research team inspired the seminal study The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (1998). Co-authored by Mellon President William G. Bowen and former Harvard president Derek Bok, The Shape of the River demonstrated the positive outcomes of diversity in higher education and stimulated other scholars to examine the role of race in academia.

Today, Mellon is focused on investments that support the creation and preservation of our cultural and scholarly record. We aim to increase equitable access to deep knowledge—from scholarly texts to community collections—that helps build an informed, culturally diverse, and civically engaged society.