Archiving Electronic Journals
Aims and objectives
• To get an overview of the challenges of
archiving electronic journals
• To consider who can take responsibility
for such archiving
• To outline some of the projects which
are creating electronic journal archives
But we need to remember that
this is an ongoing, global
problem that no-one has the
answer to yet…
Archiving issues arise with electronic
journals because they
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are technology dependent
can contain graphics, sound, video, etc
can have internal and external links
allow post-publication alterations
come in many different formats
So, what are the challenges of
archiving electronic journals?
Physical issues
• How do we maintain access over time?
– Preserve the material itself
– Preserve the technology needed to access it
• Do we have the hardware and software
required?
• How do we maintain the integrity of the
material?
– Migration/Refreshing
Legal issues
• Legal deposit
– Requires publishers supply one copy of every
paper resource to an archive
– Does not necessarily apply to electronic
publications
– New legislation being drafted
• Who has access to the archive?
– Publishers wish to protect their market
• How can the archived material be used?
Organisational issues
• How do we choose what to archive?
– Material might be updated, which version do we
use?
– What about items such as errata/corrigenda?
– What about journals that have online peer review?
– What about video/audio/animation clips?
• How is it to be catalogued?
– How do we catalogue audio/video/large data
sets/etc?
– What about material that is published without
volume, issue or page numbers?
Economic issues
• Who should pay for all this?
– Publishers? Libraries? Governments? Users?
• How will the costs of access be
calculated?
– If you have had a subscription to a journal in
the past, will you have to pay to access it in
the archive?
• How will we cover the costs of maintaining
the archives?
Around the world there are many
groups who have an interest in
archiving electronic journals including
• Research libraries
• National libraries
• Interest groups (e.g.
library associations,
Mellon Foundation)
• Publishers
• Societies/Institutes
• Government groups
(e.g. UNESCO)
But do they have the required…
• Skills—IT , cataloguing, database,
project management, etc
• Motivation—do they have a long-term
interest in creating and maintaining an
archive?
• Resources—money, IT infrastructure,
staff, time,etc
On a global scale…
G ro u p
R e s e a rc h
lib ra rie s
N a tio n a l
lib ra rie s
P u b lis h e rs
In te re s t
g ro u p s
G o v e rn m e n t
in itia tiv e s
S o c ie tie s
and
in s titu te s
R e s o u rc e s ?
S k ills ?
M o tiv a tio n ?
G ro u p
R e s e a rc h
lib ra rie s
N a tio n a l
lib ra rie s
P u b lis h e rs
In te re s t
g ro u p s
G o v e rn m e n t
in itia tiv e s
S o c ie tie s
and
in s titu te s
R e s o u rc e s ?
S k ills ?
M o tiv a tio n ?
No
M a yb e
Yes
M a yb e
M a yb e
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
M a yb e
Yes
Yes
Some examples of groups
who are working on archiving
• OCLC
• JSTOR
There are MANY others and a lot of
information available on the Internet
OCLC—www.oclc.org
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Not for profit
Serves 41,000 libraries in 82 countries
Cataloguing
Digital preservation
Cooperative reference and resource
sharing
JSTOR--uk.jstor.org
• Not for profit
• Over 1200 participating institutions
internationally
• Archiving
• Access
• Assisting move to electronic
Summary
• Archiving electronic materials is
complicated and expensive
• Archiving not possible in individual
research libraries
• MANY groups are working on it
• There is lots of free information
available
Thank you
Any questions?