Ithaka provides essential administrative management services to JSTOR, ARTstor, Ithaka, Ithaka’s incubated entities – Portico and NITLE – and to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Our support frees these organizations from having to manage these operations, enabling them to focus on core mission-related activities.  We offer shared services in four areas:  Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Software Research & Development.

We aim to build a collegial environment that blends entrepreneurial spirit with mission-based motivation.  Because we serve a variety of clients at different stages of development, our staff gains valuable experience supporting a wide range of systems, users, requirements and technology applications.  Ithaka offers an unusual opportunity to work in a “small organization” environment while taking on the professional challenges of a larger organization.

Finance

The Finance team supports Ithaka’s affiliates and incubated entities in several ways. First, we meet each group’s day-to-day accounting needs, including everything from paying invoices, to collecting receivables, to managing bank accounts. In addition, the Finance department ensures that our affiliates conform to generally accepted accounting principles and coordinates work with outside auditors. We also provide an array of standard and custom financial reports to assist in the proper management and oversight of strategic plans, budgets and overall resources. Finally, Finance helps to evaluate new opportunities for our affiliates, builds financial models to help determine and project potential sources of revenue to support new services, and generally provides internal financial and strategic advice.

Human Resources

The Human Resources team designs and develops human resources policies and programs that reflect the values and culture of each of the client organizations.  This includes the delivery of day-to-day and strategic human resources support to the various organizations on recruiting, employee relations, compensation, benefits and management training.

Information Technology

The IT team provides support for the basic IT infrastructure associated with the day-to-day work of our customers. This includes purchasing, installing and maintaining desktop PCs, laptops and PDAs and associated hardware and software. We provide helpdesk services and oversee the relationships with outside vendors of computer, data and telecommunications equipment and services. The IT department also manages the public server infrastructure that provides 24-hour access to the JSTOR, ARTstor, Mellon Foundation, Portico and NITLE web sites, which are accessed by over 1 million people each day.

Technology, Innovation & Development

The Technology, Innovation & Development team provides strategic and tactical application and systems support in three general areas: 1) Software Research and Development, 2) Prototyping, and 3) Software/Hardware Support. Software Research and Development responds to requests from our customers including areas of interest in open source, interoperability, and generalized application packages to meet current and future user needs. Prototyping provides an avenue for investigating new technologies and determining their applicability for our partners. Finally, Software/Hardware Support offers customers an alternative to engaging full-time staff by providing a range of supplemental skills such as technical consulting, support for non-standard hardware, subject matter expertise, and technical writing.

The Technology, Innovation & Development team maintains a public workspace for projects.  Notes and the final report from a recent project on OSID interoperability can be found here.