Tales from The Keepers Registry: Serial Issues About Archiving & the Web

Abstract

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o A key task for libraries is to ensure access for their patrons to the scholarly statements now found across the Internet. Three stories reveal progress towards success in that task. The context of these stories is the shift from print to digital format for all types of continuing resources, particularly journals, and the need to archive not just serials but also ongoing 'integrating resources' such as databases and Web sites.The first story is about The Keepers Registry, an international initiative to monitor the extent of e-journal archiving. The second story is about the variety of 'serial issues' that have had to be addressed during the PEPRS (Piloting an E-journals Preservation Registry Service) project which was commissioned in the UK by JISC. These include identification, naming and identification of publishers, and the continuing need for a universal holdings statement. The role of the ISSN, and of the ISSN-L, has been a key. The third story looks beyond e-journals to new research objects and the dynamics of the Web, to the role of citation and fixity, and to broader matters of digital preservation. This story reflects upon seriality, as the Web becomes the principal arena and medium for scholarly discourse. Scientific discourse is now resident on the Web. Much that is issued on the Web is issued nowhere else: it is a digital native. Statistics that indicate the extent of archiving for e-journals to which major university libraries subscribe are also included in the article.

Open is not forever: A study of vanished open access journals

“…Barnes, 1997;Case, 2016;Hodgson, 2014;Waters, 2005), the enrollment in preservation schemes has progressed only slowly. In order to monitor such arrangements, Jisc in the United Kingdom funded a project to Pilot an E-Journal Preservation Registry Services (PEPRS) that eventually became the Keepers Registry, which currently monitors 13 preservation schemes (Burnhill, 2009(Burnhill, , 2013Burnhill & Guy, 2010). Shortly after the initial launch in 2011, the Keepers recorded 16,558 serial titles with preservation agreements in place.…”

The Promise of the Future: A Review of the Serials Literature, 2012–13

“…Like the inventories conducted by Calvert and Beh and Smith, the pilot project revealed many inconsistencies in how content is preserved, especially at the issue level. 43 Libraries are facing new forms of teaching and research that need to be addressed in licenses, such as text mining and MOOCs, while a long-term issue, ADA-compliance, is receiving increased legal scrutiny. 44 Data mining is another new, complex area of research librarians are asked to incorporate into licenses.…”

Strategies for Expanding E-Journal Preservation

“…1 Influenced by the Keepers Registry study, the Columbia and Cornell University Libraries (2CUL) secured funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to explore National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences e-Depot One can search the Keepers Registry by e-journal title or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) to see if a title is preserved and by whom. They are also beta testing a service in which one can compare library holdings to Keepers holdings and receive a report back of preserved and non-preserved content.…”