Finding out about the preservation of e-journals: the

PEPRS ProjectPiloting an E-journals Preservation Registry Service

Fred Guy, Project Manager, EDINA, University of Edinburgh

f.guy@ed.ac.ukInternet Librarian International Conference 2010

15th October 2010

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So What’s the Problem with E-journals?

• 96.1% of Science journals are online

• 86.5% of Arts and Humanities are online

• 2006-2007 – 102,000,000 downloads – Up 21% from previous year

• 17% usage is at the weekend

Source. E-journals: their use, value and impact. Research Information Network. UK April 2009.

Trends in the finances of UK higher education libraries: 1999-2009. RIN 2010. p. 17

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Why Worry About Digital Preservation?

• Worries that all that is now digital may not always be available, for a variety of reasons.

* Publishers ceases publication with no transfer* Publisher goes out of business with no transfer* Publisher taken over

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Legal Deposit

• Works well with print via legislation and national libraries.

• Countries with legislation enacted (or ‘in train’) for e-materials include: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, UK

• But, not all countries (notably USA) and in UK the legislation supports voluntary deposit, with restrictions of mode of access

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Why a Preservation Registry?

• Many schemes emerging to meet challenge

• But who is doing what? – How can libraries & policy-makers assess which e-

journals are being archived, by what methods, and under what terms of access?

• JISC commissioned a scoping study for an e-journals preservation registry– the idea had been mentioned in the literature

Scoping Study for a Registry

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Scoping Study Report Precedes PEPRS

• Rightscom / Loughborough University, 2007

– Confirmed expressed need among libraries and policy makers

– Warned of potential burden on digital preservation agencies

– Recommended: * an e-journals preservation registry should be built* UK Union Catalogue of Serials (SUNCAT)

or SHERPA (Open Access) get involved – SUNCAT is hosted and managed at EDINA

PROJECT DETAILS

• Phase 1 funded by JISC (Preservation Programme) from August 2008 – July 2010

• EDINA, University of Edinburgh, grant recipient

• Project partner – ISSN International Centre, Paris

• Evaluation carried out by Charles Beagrie Limited for the JISC in February 2010

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Digital Preservation Agencies in the Pilot* Two 3rd Party Organisations

– CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe)

– Portico* Two National Libraries (c.f. legal deposit)

– British Library (BL)British Library e-Journal Digital Archive

– Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB e-Depot) KB, National Library of the Netherlands

* One library cooperative

– UK LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) Alliance

Data from the agencies

e-Depot

XML

e-DepotXML

UKLOCKSSsourceforge.net+ spreadsheet

CLOCKSSsourceforge.net+ spreadsheet

Porticospreadsheet

Perl script to parse

the data

ISSN Register

PEPRS Database

ISSN Register - steps

• Step 1. Extract a record for each record from an agency

• Step 2. Take the ISSN-L from each record

• Step 3. Parse the Register to map from the ISSN-L to the associated ISSNs

• Step 4. Load the records into a PEPRS database and link using the ISSN-L to the table with the records from the agencies.

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Example: a search on ISSN*

‘International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications’

* ISSN-L is used within the system to allow entry of either e-ISSN or p-ISSN

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Finds the agencies looking after e-journal, and the volumes being preserved

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This displays what one of the archiving agencies, does in terms of access

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This allows a list of e-journal titles to be checked

Issues identified in Phase 1

• ISSNs used by agencies

• Holdings information supplied by the agencies

• Vocabulary used by the agencies

ISSN issues

• ISSNs missing in some agency records and some not in ISSN Register

• Some duplicate records

• Some p-ISSNs used as e-ISSNs

• Some p-ISSNs linked via a common ISSN-L to a number of e-ISSNs but which one is correct?

• Some were incorrect

Holdings information - variation

e-Depot: Preserved: v. 1 - 36, 38 - 46.

UK LOCKSS Alliance: Preserved: v. 42 - 45. In progress: v. 46, 47.

Portico: Preserved: (2002-2009) v.40, v.41, v.42, v.43, v.44, v.45, v.46, v.47.

Terms used by preservation agencies CLOCKSS LOCKSS e-Depot Portico BL No action: The agency has no relationship with this title at present. (or is it best simply not to mention your agency with regard to this title?)

√ √ √

Committed: the publisher has agreed that the agency may preserve the title but the ingest process has not yet begun.

√ √ √ (with qualifications)

Queued: Publisher technical work is complete, but the preservation agency has not yet processed the title

√ √ (use term with different meaning)

Archived: The title has been ingested into the archive

√ √ √ √

Available for Library Archiving: The title has been made available for preservation by a library, subject to a library’s subscription rights.

√

Key recommendations from evaluation carried out in February 2010

• Should be funding for 2 further years with an initial 6 month phase and then if reviewed successfully for another 18 months

• Need to resolve with the agencies currency and updating of agency statements, archiving status and fields and terms to use in display.

• Continue with the development platform until the end of 2010

• Establish a governance structure

PEPRS Phase 2

• Funding provided from August 2010 – July 2012

• Beta service – late 2010

• Full service – late 2011?

• Involve international users in testing

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PEPRS Phase 2: key stagesACTIVITY Aug-10 Dec-10 Apr-11 Aug-11 Dec-11 Apr-12 Aug-12 Dec-12Set up team of usersUser testing and feedback

Beta service - preparationBeta service- operationFull service ?Advisory group on governanceGovernance in operation

Involvement with international initiatives

• Print Archives Program of the Center for Research Libraries – “CRL is working with consortial partners to plan a prototype print archives framework to link existing print archiving efforts. has developed a searchable Print Archives Registry of information about print-archiving initiatives, including:

– Projects

– Serial Holdings.

• HATHITrust – “….is committed to preserving the intellectual content and in many cases the exact appearance and layout of materials digitized for deposit. HathiTrust stores and preserves metadata detailing the sequence of files for the digital object”.

PEPRS: Further information and Contact details

http://edina.ac.uk/projects/peprs/index.html

Fred Guy, EDINA, University of Edinburgh

f.guy@ed.ac.uk