Week 13 - Perpetual Access

Notes again this week in preparation for the quiz:

"Portico: An Electronic Archiving Service" presentation by Eileen Fenton

• Provides an archive for electronic academic journals
• Started by JSTOR in 2005
• Separate from JSTOR so that it can preserve both JSTOR journals and others
• Not-for-profit
• Works to save "intellectual content" not "look and feel" on publisher's website
• Normalizes source file to an archival format
• One article may have 100 files of images in various qualities, text, etc.
• Access provided campus wide and remotely for libraries giving financial support
• Cost is based on total money spent on collection per year by a particular library
• Discounts used as incentive to provide support early (2006 and 2007)
• Publishers also pay for right to supply content
• Libraries get access to entire archive regardless of their individual journal subscriptions
• Journal issues only available on Portico when not available from publisher or other sources
• Portico can also provide perpetual access for an institution when it cancels a subscription
• Shared archive saves money vs. each library keeping own collection

"A Social Model for Archiving Digital Serials: LOCKSS" by Michael Seadle

• Open source software model instead of one not-for-profit institution
• Members contribute financially to support core programmers
• Issues in digital preservation
• Must be able to trust technology
• Need to preserve integrity and context of object
• Authenticity decided by comparing copies of "same" item and determining which copy is the most common
• Developed at Stanford
• 100 servers operating (2006)
• LOCKSS Technology
• Archive exact copy rather than normalized format
• Bitstream archiving seems to allow for migration to new file formats
• Each version of a journal kept as a separate object
• Need 6 or more copies to guarantee integrity
• Working towards metadata plugin with JHOVE, OAI, etc.
• Need to get permission from publishers before archiving contents
• Especially important to archive small publishers whose work is more likely to be lost

 "Preservation Concerns in the E-Resource Environment" by Jennifer Watson

• Accreditation for some programs now requires "access to information" not a physical library
• Why libraries compromise desire for perpetual access
• Patron pressure - More important to serve patrons than refuse licenses based on perpetual access
• Most content available in print (for now)
• Financial pressure
• Can't afford both digital and print copies
• Can't afford to hire staff to negotiate perpetual access
• Some publishers charge an access fee for perpetual access
• Difficult to store digital material because of large file sizes and obsolescence/migration
• Difficult to store online material
• Constantly changing
• Large volume of content
• Important to store online reference materials for historical research
• Initiatives in e-resource preservation- 3rd Parties
• JSTOR - Journal Storage
• subscription service that provides access to back issues after an embargo period
• LOCKSS - not normalizing data may lead to data becoming obsolete
• serve data during any outage of publisher's website
• Portico - assumes libraries do not want to manage long-term storage (ie LOCKSS)
• Does not accept post-publication changes
• Google Book Search
• PubMed Central - provides online life sciences journal content for free and makes backup copy in case of failure at publisher's website
• Initiatives in e-resource preservation - Libraries
• Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) member libraries purchase a single print copy of journal titles to preserve in CIC facilities
• Institutional repositories - version discrepancies for articles and lack of interest from authors
• National Library of the Netherlands takes responsibility for the country's digital preservation
• Also provides access to any licensee in the event the publisher cannot (calamities, bankruptcy)
• Initiatives in e-resource preservation - Publishers
• Many sign up with LOCKSS, Portico, JSTOR, and other initiatives mentioned above
• Publisher preservation initiatives are unreliable since publishers are bought, go out of business, and are profit motivated
• Initiatives in e-resource preservation - Governments
• Some require copy of all publications to be submitted to a legal repository
• Extend this legislation to e-resources
• Initiatives in e-resource preservation - Foundations
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Wellcome Trust provide funding

"From Dark Archive to Open Access: CLOCKSS Trigger Event Lessons" by Victoria Reich

• Controlled LOCKSS
• Similar trigger events as Portico
• Unlike Portico, triggered content is Open Access - provided to everyone for free
• Uses Creative Commons license
• Three volumes of Graft and Auto/Biography have been triggered
• 75% of use not identifiably academic
• Overall low use
• CrossRef is making CrossRef Multiple Resolution for triggered content
• Shows all archives where content is present

"Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals: A Survey of One Academic Research Library's Licenses" by J. Stemper and S. Barribeau

• Print retention projects - ensure that someone somewhere still has a complete run of a journal's print copy
• ex: CIC above
• Significant monetary investment, document delivery copyright issues, publishers may abandon print altogether
• Previous study in 2001 found that 22 out of 44 licenses granted perpetual access and 9 charged for this
• Previous ARL survey found that 44% were going e-only in 2003 but 85.4% did not see lack of perpetual access as a deal breaker
• Previous study by the authors found that 76% ask journal publishers for perpetual access but 76% still sign a license without assurance of such access
• Libraries seem not to take publishers up on their offer of LOCKSS access
• Libraries could use local data loading (ie CDs or LOCKSS) for perpetual access but format may become obsolete and this requires infrastructure and staffing costs
• Study of University of Minnesota licenses regarding perpetual access
• 64% grant perpetual access
• 72% of commercial and 56% of society publishers
• Print is an add-on to electronic now instead of the reverse
• Some licenses outright state no perpetual access or even require all downloaded copies to be deleted at the end of the subscription
• Some have a specific expiration parameter (5 years, 10 years, etc.)
• Aggregators rarely provide for continued access since their title lists and coverage frequently changes
• Of those granting perpetual access, 43.8% charge for this
• Roughly equal percentage of commercial and society publishers
• Typically paid to publisher but sometimes third party
• Fee is generally vague but occasionally specific (ie 10% of subscription cost)
• JSTOR does not grant perpetual access
• Continued access through publisher's own server and local data loading offered in equal numbers of licenses
• Many society publishers (71.4%) allow local data loading vs. 38.9% of commercial publishers
• Some specify that a third party will provide access
• 32% of studied publishers are partners with LOCKSS
• 6% of studied publishers are partners with Portico
• Only 1 publisher is a partner of both
• Some allow library to choose who will provide access
• Some licenses are intentionally vague regarding perpetual access
• Society publishers are not more likely to provide perpetual access than commercial publishers
• Cannot assume that library can safely cancel print version of journal included in a full-text aggregator database and retain access
• Libraries should consider making lack of perpetual access a deal breaker
• University of Maryland and University of California-Berkeley set precedent for this
• Consortia have enough economic leverage to possibly achieve this
• Libraries should budget for perpetual access
• JSTOR, Portico, publisher's back files, etc.
• Libraries should ask legal counsel whether perpetual access clause can stand up in court
• Need to include wording about publisher mergers