Electronic JournalsAccess & Preservation

Roles, Responsibilities & Emerging Solutions

Terry Morrowtm_morrow@yahoo.co.uk

The Lost Libraries of Timbuctu

© BBC

Agenda

The Problem – whose problem, who pays Access or Preservation? What to save? Costs, Benefits and Risks Choose a solution Four Scenarios Discussion Review of current initiatives Report conclusions, recommendations Recent developments

A Comparative Study

of e-Journal

Archiving Solutions

A JISC Funded Investigation

Final Report - May 2008

Terry Morrow (Tee Em Consulting)

Neil Beagrie Maggie Jones (Charles Beagrie Ltd)

Julia Chruszcz (Top Class Computer Technologies Ltd) © 2008 JISC Collections The authors have asserted their moral rights in this work.

The Problem

Libraries are increasingly moving to e-only solutions

Libraries’ traditional role was access and preservation

Now they direct users to external servers/services

These services provide access to a copy That copy is typically in hands of publisher –

vulnerable to loss

Whose problem & who pays?

This is a shared problem Everyone who benefits from the technology

has some responsibility Authors, Publishers, Librarians, Subscription

agents, Aggregators, Repository managers Who pays?

Arguably, all who benefit from this form of delivery should contribute

Access or Preservation?

Perpetual/continuing access Continuing access, even after cancellation Analogous to backfiles on shelf Librarians feel subscription = ownership Subscribers should ensure that perpetual access is

included Long term preservation

Ensuring content is accessible and readable for the indefinite future

Larger scale problem Responsibility of publishers, libraries, society as a whole Problems include costs and technology obsolescence

What to save?

One answer - what you see on screen Otherwise known as rendition files Retains look and feel of journal Initial costs lower May be difficult to preserve content over time Eg strategy for large scale migration between formats is

essentially untested Another answer - source files used by publisher

Advantage - content likely to be more complete Disadvantage - higher costs; presentation differs from

original Not obvious what correct answer is

Therefore best to save as much as possible

Costs, Benefits, Risks

Preservation isn’t a free option! Hardware, software, people all cost Costs will continue indefinitely

Investment in preservation - insurance Risk, consequences of loss of access need to be

assessed

Costs, Benefits, Risks (cont.)

Eg 1 Major research university Large collection of high impact journals Loss of access would have major consequences Should invest in more than one solution

Eg 2 Small teaching college Limited, specialised collection Fallback might be document supply from BL etc May wish to take the risk of not subscribing to any

backup service

Solution selection criteria

Coverage no. of publishers, titles, year ranges

Costs, charging basis Post cancellation access Immediate access if short term problem Size, type of institution - research, teaching Teams, departments with special needs

Some possible scenarios

Scenario 1 Library cancels subscription Wants access to past subscribed issues

Scenario 2 E-Journal no longer available from publisher Highly likely as publishers merge, change

business models or portfolios of titles UKSG TRANSFER initiative Code of Practice

covers transfer between publishers

Scenarios (cont.)

Scenario 3 Publisher has ceased operation (titles not

transferred to another) Unlikely for large publishers, though impact would

be high Scenario 4

Catastrophic failure of publisher’s service Unable to deliver service for prolonged period Temporary access to preserved content enabled

Discussion

Small groups 5 minutes Whether you are customer or provider of serials,

discuss what you are currently doing to preserve e-journals

Six initiatives - LOCKSS LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)

Libraries play active role – each has LOCKSS box Copies of all journals in agreement saved locally Closest analogue to paper preservation Now a JISC-sponsored UK subscription service - 18 signed Operated by EDINA, Edinburgh; now over 400 publishers

Advantages Content made available as soon as publisher inaccessible Covers many smaller (more vulnerable) publishers

Disadvantages Needs some local technical support To date larger publishers not signed up (tho’ working with T&F)

Six initiatives - CLOCKSS CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS)

Based on LOCKSS technology CLOCKSS now an independent not-for-profit corporation Last year moved from trial to service “Global dark archive” – only opened after trigger (2 events so far) 11 locations - 15 planned for 2010

(US - 6, Japan, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Edinburgh) Attracted big publishers

(eg Elsevier, T&F, Wiley-Blackwell, IOP, OUP, Springer etc) Advantages

Appeals to larger publishers Disadvantages

Post-cancellation access not supported Only triggered when publication abandoned by publisher

Six initiatives - Portico Portico

Designed as third party archiving service Permanent dark archive Access only permitted after disruption of publisher access Preserves normalised source files and rendition files Option to provide post cancellation access

Advantages Enables library to purchase outsourced solution Major STM publishers participating

Disadvantages May be relatively costly solution Some see dependence on publisher income a weakness

Six initiatives reviewed (cont.)

e-Depot Initiative of Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB – Dutch national library) Content includes Dutch university repositories, websites,

newspapers etc Initially only Dutch e-journals; now worldwide; inc Elsevier

Advantages Aim to cover all major STM publishers KB strong reputation in DP research and practice

Disadvantages Large publishers - trigger events unlikely to happen Access by publisher agreement – generally onsite

Six initiatives reviewed (cont.)

OCLC Electronic Collections Online (ECO) Not an archiving service as such Long term (inc post-cancellation) access to subscribed

content Depends on continuing to pay OCLC an access fee

British Library Least developed of the initiatives reviewed Infrastructure in place Have begun ingesting content from five publishers Testing & streamlining ingest solution Working on access mechanism at Legal Deposit Libraries

Figure 2: Comparative Analysis of E -Journal Archiving Programs – Trigger Events

Access Arrangements Trigger Event LOCKSS CLOCKSS PORTICO e-Depot OCLC ECO

BL E-jnl archive

1. Library cancels subscription and needs access to past issues to which they subscribed

Yes

No

This is not one of the trigger events included

Yes

Providing the publisher has nominated Portico as a provider of post -cancellation access.

No

Except for onsite access.

Yes

ECO provides continued access on payment of an access fee.

No

This is not one of the trigger events included.

2. E-Journal or its past issues are no longer available from the publisher

Yes .

Yes The title would be made openly accessible to all.

Yes The title would be opened up to all active participants, regardless of whether they previously subscribed to the content

Yes At least onsite access. Open access following trigger if agreed with publisher .

Yes ECO’s Business Model is to continue to provide access to journal titles on payment of an access fee.

Yes At least onsite access. Open access following trigger if agreed with publisher .

3. Publisher has ceased operation and e-publication is no longer possible.

Yes

Yes

Ditto above

Yes

Ditto above

Yes

Ditto above

Yes

Ditto above

Yes

Ditto above

4. Catastrophic failure of publisher’s operations/

servers

Yes

Yes

As long as publisher is unable to provide a service.

Yes

As long as publisher una ble to provide a service.

Possibly

Depends on agreements with publisher.

Yes

Ditto above

Possibly

Depends on agreements with publisher.

Findings – general points Responsibility of all in information chain

Authors, publishers, repository managers, librarians, subscription agents, aggregators and negotiators

Publishers Now have a new responsibility to ensure preservation

Libraries Must raise awareness within institutions Work with policy makers – get e-J archiving/preservation

incorporated in institutional strategies Archiving services must earn trust of key players

Demonstrate financial/organisational sustainability Technical insight and expertise

Recommendations:Libraries

Take initiative – raise awareness work with policy makers embed in library/institutional strategies

Carry out risk assessment of impact of loss of access to subscribed

e-journals a cost/benefit analysis on value, relevance of archiving

solutions offered National institutions should ensure solutions cover

material of value to their country’s libraries BL should provide safety net for UK publications Provide greater clarity about their plans

Recommendations:Publishers & Agents

Publishers should acknowledge responsibility for security of e-journal content support one or more initiatives provide clear statements on their archiving policies state their perpetual access policy under specified

scenarios provide post cancellation access at minimum cost

Publishers, trade organisations should gather, share statistics on risk of trigger events

Transfer Code of Practice should be followed when titles move between publishers

Recommendations:Publishers & Libraries

Licensing agreements should define post-cancellation access arrangements

Libraries should strongly encourage publishers to work with one or more external archiving solutions

Recommendations:Archiving solutions

Need … Sound & transparent financial models To demonstrate technical insight, expertise, ability to deal

with new technologies High profile visibility & buy-in from wide range of publishers To provide clarity on coverage, publishers, titles, years and

issues The trust of publishers to safeguard their assets To be clear about access arrangements after trigger event

Recommendations:Archiving solutions & Publishers

Need to work together to develop cross-industry definitions of trigger

events, protocols on conditions for release of preserved

content. Ground rules for post-trigger event

negotiation should be clear, transparent, established in advance

Recommendations:Negotiators

Use their influence, contracts, to define post-cancellation access arrangements short-list of approved archiving solutions

For community “big” deals, support one or more approved archiving solutions

Footnote: Developments since publication

NESLi2 Licence updated to include archiving July 08

Transfer Code of Practice V 2 released Sept 08

Portico - e-books archiving agreement with Elsevier June 08

CLOCKSS – moved from prototype to production June 08

UK LOCKSS – from pilot to membership organisation Aug 08

Terry Morrow

Tee Em Consultingtm_morrow@yahoo.co.uk