Serials Preservation at a Crossroads

Elizabeth L. Bogdanski

0098-7913/$–see fro

doi:10.1016/j.serrev.

Bogdanski is CurQuest Informatione-mail: Elizabeth.b

Libraries face a crossroads when contemplating serials preservation issues. Thispaper will discuss the ideas presented during bSerials Preservation: at a Crossroads,Qa one-day meeting held in March 2005, and sponsored by the North AmericanSerials Interest Group. Binding, off-site storage, preserving e-journals, and vendorefforts, as well as looking at new developments, such as Google Book Search, offerstrategies and challenges for preserving serials and expanding avenues of access forusers. Many options exist for serials preservation, but libraries must ultimatelyconsider their individual needs and environment to determine the best serialspreservation strategy. Serials Review 2006; 32:70–72.D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Today’s libraries face a crossroads when contemplatingserials preservation. They collect serials in a variety offormats, including print, electronic only, and microform.Varying formats present a new set of preservationchallenges. Which format should be preserved? Howcan a library preserve all of its print content when space isat a premium? Who is responsible for preserving elec-tronic journals? How do vendors fit into the equation?Which way should the library turn at this preservationcrossroads?

Serials librarians and preservationists have many se-rials preservation options. The dilemma of serials pre-servation remains. Different ideas and innovations, suchas Google Book Search, will enable a library to makeappropriate preservation decisions for its circumstance. Aone-day conference held in March 2005, bSerials Preser-vation: at a Crossroads,Q organized by the author andsponsored by the North American Serials Interest Group,generated answers to some of these questions and allowedan overview of issues and trends affecting the scholarlycommunity. The speakers presented ideas to addressserials preservation issues in all formats from both thelibrarian’s and vendor’s perspective. This paper willdiscuss the ideas presented during Serials Preservation:at a Crossroads, as well as build on these ideas whilelooking at new developments, such as Google BookSearch.

nt matter D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2006.03.002

rent Newspapers Product Manager, Pro-and Learning, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA;ogdanski@il.proquest.com.

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Preserving Print Serials

As librarians make decisions about preserving printjournals, a number of issues must be taken into account,such as shelf space, accessibility, and the potential for off-site storage. Several speakers at bSerials Preservation: at aCrossroadsQ discussed strategies for preserving printserials, including Kevin Driedger from the Library ofMichigan and Jeanne Drewes from Michigan StateUniversity.Despite the growth of electronic journals, print serials

remain an important part of library collections. Bindingis a common way to preserve print serials because it isrelatively inexpensive and helps to protect the integrityof a library’s journal collection. Driedger explained thatbinding is also important to continue in an increasinglyelectronic world because many materials do not trans-late well electronically, losing the nuances of the paper,such as format and color.Binding journal collections is a way to keep a serials

collection intact but what happens when a library runsout of space to store the journals? Jeanne Drewesdiscussed off-site print repositories as an option forpreserving print journals, including institutional, inter-institutional, and regional repositories. Binding and printrepositories dissipate any uncertainty regarding futureaccess of electronic content because the print title is stillowned by the library. And, if a library gains electronicaccess to journal titles, such as those available in JSTOR,yet keeps the print counterpart off-site, the library cannotonly provide access to a journal, but also preserve it forthe future.If off-site storage is not an option and the library is

running out of space for print journals, microform is aproven preservation method. Microforms will last at

Volume 32, Number 2, 2006 Serials Preservation at a Crossroads

least 500 years when kept under ideal conditions. RobertLee and BobMollison from ProQuest-UMI discussed thecontinuing relevance of microforms despite the growingpopularity of and improved preservation technologyassociated with digital formats. While microforms arenot glamorous, they do play an important role in serialspreservation because the microform maintains the integ-rity of the images and format of a journal, with minimalwear and tear and considerable space savings.1

Preserving Electronic Journals

Universities and vendors face a new set of preservationchallenges with bborn digitalQ content. Michael Seadlefrom Michigan State University addressed electronicjournal preservation through LOCKSS (Lots of CopiesKeeps Stuff Safe). Details about LOCKSS can be found athttp://lockss.stanford.edu/index.html. Briefly, LOCKSSis an open source software that turns a personal computerinto a persistent Web cache and preservation tool for e-journals. LOCKSS is a relatively easy solution for lib-raries to preserve e-journal content because it does notrequire a lot of technical knowledge or powerful hard-ware. Another option for libraries to preserve scholarlywork in-house is through an institutional repository (IR).Jeff Riedel from ProQuest Information and Learningdiscussed the ProQuest IR service, Digital Commons, andsuggested that IRs are a way for libraries to preserve theirinstitution’s intellectual output. If a university is inter-ested in beginning an IR, preservation should not be abarrier, but rather practices and policies should beevaluated continually to ensure the content is preservedfor future users.Vendors such as JSTOR and Elsevier are also tackling

serials preservation issues. Both organizations have takensignificant steps to safeguard their digital content bymaintaining consistent technical standards, flexibility,and a commitment to preservation. JSTOR has partneredwith Harvard and the California Digital Library tomaintain print repositories of the journals available inJSTOR.2 Elsevier has partnered with Portico, an elec-tronic archiving service initiated by JSTOR, to preserveits collection of over 2,100 journals.3 Of course, librariesneed to license and continually pay for access to thiscontent but with the benefit of a sophisticated searchinterface.

bSerials Preservation: at a CrossroadsQ: TheDiscussion

The speakers at bSerials Preservation: at a CrossroadsQprovided a variety of ideas and points of view aboutserials preservation. While these ideas are not necessarilynew, they represent the diversity of issues librarians mustconsider when determining how to preserve serials attheir institutions. Libraries havemany options to preservetheir serials, including print preservation, microforms,digital preservation, and vendor preservation. The tran-sition from print to digital content has made preservationdecisions more complicated and, unfortunately, a pres-ervation panacea has not emerged. Issues involving

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serials preservation are complex. Consider the followingquestions:

! When determining which way to turn at the cross-roads, what are the priorities of the library and itsusers?

! Do the library users want more digital content so theycan work from home, or do they prefer to have a printjournal to study diagrams and photographs?

! What resources are available or can be providedrealistically?

! Will a vendor’s digital collection satisfy the library’spreservation and ownership policies while providingusers with the best access possible, or is a system suchas LOCKSS more consistent with the library’sphilosophy?

The Emergence of a New Preservation Player

Google has entered the world of preservation. Aside fromGoogle Scholar, which is a search engine for open sourceand selected publishers’ scholarly content, Google has notplayed a large role in the serials world. With theannouncement of Google Print, now called Google BookSearch (http://books.google.com/), in December 2004,Google will increase its impact on libraries in general andpreservation programs specifically, including the serialsworld.4 Google will be digitizing books from severallibraries including Stanford, Harvard, and the Universityof Michigan. All of the University of Michigan’s collec-tion will be digitized plus serials, including many titlesthat otherwise would not have been digitized.5 Forexample, ephemeral titles from the nineteenth centuryare now available in Google Book Search. Most of thesetitles are not indexed elsewhere but scholars can nowsearch the full text and view these titles online, in thelibrary or at home. University of Michigan PresidentMary Sue Coleman discussed the importance of provid-ing searchable digital copies of books in a recent speech:

It is an educator’s dream, knowing that the vast body ofinformation held in the libraries of Michigan, Stanford,Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library willbe universally searchable and, in the case of publicdomain works, accessible. . . I cannot tell you howexhilarating – and how humbling – it is to know thatthis digital enterprise, with our university’s books, willprovide that same joy of discovery for people everywhere,from Iowa to Indonesia.6

Access to contemporary journal and monograph titlesscanned into Google have been limited to snippets due tocopyright restrictions.7 Google is currently involved inseveral copyright disputes so it is unclear how accessiblethese titles will be in the future. A discussion of thecopyright implications of Google Book Search would betoo extensive to include here, but it is important to notethat Google Book Search allows users to discover contentthat may have been missed before the full text wassearchable. In this case, Google Book Searchmay bemorebeneficial to publishers because author’s works maybecomemore visible.8 For further information on Google

Elizabeth L. Bogdanski Serials Review

and copyright, DigitalKoans created a bibliography ofselected articles, bThe Google Print Controversy: ABibliography.Q9

Google Book Search has many benefits, but it is notwithout critics. Despite Coleman’s enthusiasm for Goo-gle’s search capabilities, how the Google algorithm isdetermining what titles appear in the Book Search resultsand in what order remains unclear. Google has describedtheir search algorithm in theGoogle Librarian Newsletterbut this description does not seem to extend to GoogleBook Search.10 Google has closely guarded its trade secretaround Google Book Search—but to the detriment ofusers.11 Are Google Book Search results suitable forscholarly research? No one really knows yet becauseresearchers do not know how results are ranked and arenot able to manipulate results by relevancy or date.

Google’s mission to organize the world’s informationmirrors the library’s mission to make informationaccessible. While these two missions complement eachother, libraries seem to be intimidated byGoogle, as usersappear to begin research on Google first and come to thelibrary as a last resort.12 Whether this perception isentirely correct or not, Google will not replace the library.Siva Vaidhyanathan presents the following view:

Companies change and fail. Libraries and universitieslast. Should we entrust our heritage and collectiveknowledge to a business that has been around for lesstime than Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were together? Ahundred years from now, Google may well not exist.Much to the dismay of Ohio State University’s footballfans, the University of Michigan will. For that reasonalone, it’s imperative that stable public institutions takethe lead in such an ambitious project.13

Google and similar projects launched by Yahoo andMicrosoft will not make the library or preservationirrelevant.14 But, these projects will change the library.Public perception will certainly change after Googlemakes millions of books and serials available throughGoogle Book Search. As a result, there may be a shift oflibrary resources away from traditional services to digitalservices. Michigan’s President Coleman continued withthis point in her recent speech, bWhen students doresearch, they use the Internet for digitized libraryresources more than they use the library proper. It’s thatsimple. So we are obligated to take the resources of thelibrary to the Internet. . .Universities are not islands in thesea of technology. We must change with our students,and that means embracing the Internet and all it can, anddoes offer.Q15Many libraries are already experiencing thisshift, often voluntarily, but it is important that librariesdo not hide in the shadow of Google. Librarians canleverage all of Google’s tools to teach patrons to use andevaluate digital information preparing them for moresophisticated information resources.

Which Road Now?

At the crossroads, Google has created more questionsthan answers for libraries and complicates decisions

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about serials preservation. And, Google has not emergedas a digital preservation solution to the vast serialsresources libraries maintain. Libraries must still considertraditional formats, such as print and microform, whenmaking preservation decisions. Libraries must determinethe best route tomaintain access to e-journals and journalcollections provided by vendors. Most libraries will findthey need to maintain a mix of formats to meet the needsof students and faculty and balance those needs with thelibrary’s mission to preserve serials. Libraries mustevaluate new technologies and products, such as GoogleBook Search. At this point, we are only looking downeach path at the crossroads to determine what the bestcourse of action may be and, in due time, each library willhave to determine its own direction.Will that direction bethe traditional road well-traveled? A new road? Or re-mapping for new directions and a blend of options?

Notes

1. bSIM: Introduction,Q http://www.il.proquest.com/sim/info/

introduction.shtml (accessed on March 9, 2006).

2. bJSTORArchiving Practices,Q http://www.jstor.org/about/archive.

html (accessed on March 9, 2006).

3. bElsevier Acts to Safeguard E-Journals,Q http://www.elsevier.com/

wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_00370(accessed March 9, 2006).

4. John Markoff and Edward Wyatt, bGoogle Is Adding MajorLibraries to Its Database,Q New York Times (December 14,2004): A1.

5. bGoogle Checks Out Library Books,Q http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/print_library.html (accessed March 9, 2006).

6. Mary Sue Coleman, bGoogle, the Khmer Rouge, and the Public

Good,Q Address to the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division

of the Association of American Publishers, Feb. 6, 2006. http://

www.umich.edu/pres/speeches/060206google.html (accessed onMarch 9, 2006).

7. bAbout Google Book Search,Q http://books.google.com/intl/en/

googlebooks/about.html (accessed March 9, 2006).

8. Cory Doctorow, bWhy Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to

Google,Q http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why_publishing_

shoul.html (accessed March 9, 2006).

9. DigitalKoans, bThe Google Print Controversy: A Bibliography,Qhttp://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2005/10/25/the-google-

print-controversy-a-bibliography/ (accessed March 9, 2006).

10. Matt Cutts, bHow Does Google Collect and Rank Results?QGoogle’s Newsletter for Librarians 1 (December 2005),http://www.google.com/newsletter/librarian/librarian_2005_12/

article1.html (accessed March 9, 2006).

11. Liz Losh, bMore on Google’s Book Search dStandardsT,Q Sivacracy.Net blog (February 21, 2006) (accessed March 9, 2006).

12. James Caufield, bWhere did Google Get Its Value,Q Portal,Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 4 (October 2005): 555–572.

13. Siva Vaidhyanathan, bA Risky Gamble with Google,Q TheChronicle of Higher Education 52, no. 15 (December 2005):B7–B10.

14. Open Content Alliance, http://www.opencontentalliance.org/

(accessed March 9, 2006).

15. Mary Sue Coleman, bGoogle, the Khmer Rouge, and the Public

Good.Q