Transcript Archiving Electronic Journals: A Developmental Approach Eileen Fenton The JISC/CNI Meeting, July 2004

Archiving Electronic Journals:
A Developmental Approach
Eileen Fenton
The JISC/CNI Meeting, July 2004
Overview
• Preservation in a time of transition
• Organizational context for preservation
• Components of a trusted archive and emerging roles
• Overview of the Electronic-Archiving Initiative
Preservation: In Transition
• Libraries serve an important two-fold mission:
– They provide the information resources necessary for
their local community.
– They are the traditional preservers of the scholarly
record.
• In order to meet the information needs of the local
community, a library is must hold and preserve a local
copy - within the confines of an extensive, expensive
infrastructure.
• Preservation and access are tightly linked.
Preservation: In Transition
• For electronic resources ownership is not required in
order to meet local information needs.
• Ownership, preservation and access are no longer
linked.
• This shift has enormous implications for the
preservation of electronic resources.
Preservation: In Transition
• First, there is no longer a natural motivation to build an
infrastructure to insure the long-term preservation of
and access to electronic resources.
• Second, it is less clear who is responsible for fulfilling the
preservation role.
• Third, new models – technical and organizational – and
new infrastructure are needed.
The JSTOR Context
• JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to
help the scholarly community take advantage of
advances in information technologies.
• JSTOR has pursued this mission through the creation
and maintenance of a trusted digital archive of the full
back runs of academic journals.
• To date JSTOR serves as a trusted digital archive of over
400 journals from more than 38 disciplines.
– Over 15 million pages have been digitized.
– JSTOR is supported by more than 2,000 participating
libraries from 80+ countries.
The JSTOR Context
• JSTOR’s commitment to serve as an archive is format
neutral. From the inception of JSTOR the inclusion of eversions of journals was anticipated.
• JSTOR launched the Electronic-Archiving Initiative, or
“E-Archive” in response to the challenge of archiving ejournals.
• JSTOR approaches this challenge with a system-wide
perspective seeking to reduce costs and improve
convenience for all participants in the scholarly
communication cycle.
The JSTOR Context
• It is clear that archiving electronic resources will require
a significant investment in the development of
organizational and technological infrastructure.
• Maximum system-wide benefit from the investment in
this infrastructure will be achieved by archiving a broad
array of content that extends well beyond JSTOR’s
current collections scope and mission.
• A new entity is needed. Launching new organizations is
beyond the scope of JSTOR’s mission.
Mission
• Ithaka has been founded to accelerate the creation, development
and success of not-for-profit organizations focused on deploying
new technologies for the benefit of higher education
• It brings together:
– Financial resources from (initially) three foundations (Mellon, Hewlett,
Niarchos)
– The experience derived from the creation of JSTOR, including a
conviction that organizations such as JSTOR can contribute enormous
value to the scholarly community
– Relationships in all sectors and at all levels of the higher education
community (developed at the sponsoring foundations and through
JSTOR)
The Electronic-Archiving Initiative
The mission of the Electronic-Archiving Initiative is to preserve
scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure
that these materials remain available to future generations of
scholars, researchers, and students.
E-Archive expects to take responsibility for archiving a broad
range of scholarly e-journals and journal-like resources.
JSTOR, Ithaka, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation are
together supporting the development of E-Archive.
Components of a Trusted Archive
1. Mission
– Mission is critical because it drives resource allocation and routine
organizational priorities and activities.
2. Business Model
– Sustainability is key.
– The archive must generate funds adequate to cover the work of
the archive from sufficiently diversified sources.
– Together the community will need to find a way to develop and
sustain an archiving capacity. Libraries and publishers will need
to contribute. Foundations and government agencies may also
have a role.
Components of a Trusted Archive
3. Technical Infrastructure
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An infrastructure must be developed which supports in a sufficiently
redundant way the key functions of the archive (ingest, verification, storage,
delivery, migration)
4. Relations with Libraries
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The archive must meet the needs of the library community and the scholars
they serve.
Libraries and archives have an opportunity to work together to ensure that
content is preserved in a way that fulfills the needs of scholars.
5. Relations with Content Producers
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The archive must secure the rights necessary to the archival task and must
arrange for timely, secure deposit of content.
Publishers and archives have an opportunity to work together to create
archivable content.
E-Archive Approach
• “Source File” archive: E-Archive will seek to preserve the
source files which comprise publishers’ e-journals.
– This approach captures some content which is not presented
online (i.e., higher resolution graphics).
– This approach makes it very difficult to capture certain elements
such as dynamic advertisements and editorial information.
E-Archive Areas of Activity
1. Define an archival service.
2. Develop a business model which ensures the short-, mid-, and
long-term sustainability of the archive.
3. Design and build technological infrastructure and develop
content processing protocols and tools.
4. Research the economic impact of electronic resources on
operations costs for libraries and content producers.
Activities to Date: Define an Archival Service
• Engaged libraries in discussions of e-archiving needs and
challenges.
– Emerging themes:
• There is a widespread desire for a trusted solution to the earchiving need. This is true for academic libraries of all sizes.
• Regardless of institution size, librarians believe it is important
for their own institution to contribute to the solution of this
problem.
• Librarians recognize that e-archiving raises complex technical
and business issues.
• Librarians are concerned about “perpetual access” to
materials that have been “bought and paid for.”
Activities to Date: Define an Archival Service
• Ten publishers are participating in pilot, developmental phase.
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Association of Computing Machinery
American Economic Association
American Mathematical Society
American Political Science Association
Blackwell Publishing
Ecological Society of America
National Academy of Sciences
The Royal Society
University of Chicago
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Activities to Date: Define an Archival Service
• Gathered publishers’ perspectives on the e-archiving
challenge.
• Emerging themes:
– Establishing a trusted archival arrangement is an emerging best
practice for leading publishers.
– Multiple archival arrangements are being contemplated by some
publishers.
– An archive helps scholarly societies to maintain flexibility in
publishing relationships.
– An archive provides a practical way to fulfill the “perpetual access”
clauses found in many content licenses.
– An archive eliminates the need for the publisher to store older
materials indefinitely, thereby freeing resources for enhancing
current publications.
Activities to Date: Define an Archival Service
• Archival Service features:
– Archive a publisher’s full complement of scholarly journals. Seek
payment from publishers for this service.
– Libraries also support the work of the archive and in return can
access the archive. This access is provided in order to allow
supporters of the archive to see that the content is safely held in
the archive.
– Access to the archive is in accordance with a very JSTOR-like
moving wall. The archive also provides access as needed to
address perpetual access concerns.
Activities to Date: Develop Business Model
• Assumptions:
– Those parties who benefit from an archive will help to pay for it.
Libraries and publishers are the key beneficiaries.
– A diversified revenue stream is important. Ideally the archive will
be able to cover its costs via contributions from publishers,
libraries, and possibly foundation and governmental sources.
– An archive must provide enough access to its materials to enable
those who rely on the archive to know that the content is safe and
well cared for. A completely dark archive is not satisfactory.
• Activities: Working to assess costs and establish pricing.
Activities to Date: Technical Infrastructure
• Analyzed and processed sample e-journal source file data.
• Created prototype archive; production-level archive now in
development.
• Developed tools for normalization and verification of archived
content. Developing quality control routines and targets.
• Participating in a number of efforts focused on related issues:
– Digital Library Federation Global File Format Registry
– OCLC/RLG Preservation Metadata Framework Work Group
(PREMIS)
– Harvard/NLM Archival/Interchange DTD Advisory Group
– Sponsored development of the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation
Environment (JHOVE)
Activities to Date: Research
• Working with Ithaka’s research unit, completed a study
investigating the non-subscription costs to libraries for print
and electronic periodicals.
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www.dlib.org/dlib/january04/01contents.html
www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub127abst.html
• Working with a consultant to design a similar study involving
publishers.
Current Focus
• Finalize business model
• Complete work on production-level archival repository
• Secure support from publisher and library communities
The Electronic-Archiving Initiative
Eileen Gifford Fenton
[email protected]