Robert Wolven
Associate University Librarian for Bibliographic Services and Collection Development
Columbia University
Oya Rieger
Associate University Librarian
Digital Scholarship & Preservation Services
Cornell University
In many fields, e-journals have become the predominant form in which research libraries provide access to serial literature for their students and researchers. Yet, despite the fact that initiatives such as CLOCKSS, Portico, and LOCKSS have preserved thousands of e-journals, recent studies by Columbia, Cornell, Duke, and others have consistently found that fewer than a third of the e-journal titles collected by these libraries are currently preserved by any major preservation agency. The titles not yet secured for preservation vary widely in their characteristics and importance and strategies needed to secure their preservation may prove equally diverse. The libraries of Columbia and Cornell Universities have embarked on a project, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to expand the number and range of e-journals preserved, by developing and testing strategies appropriate to different types of publications. This project will provide for an analysis of the corpus of e-journal titles collected but not preserved, and it will assign priorities, select representative titles from different groups, and work with publishers, distributors, preservation agencies, and libraries to secure preservation arrangements. Through this work, the participating institutions aim to promote models that can be broadly applied by libraries to further extend the range of e-journals preserved. Sustainability and effectiveness of the initiative will require a broad engagement of the library and publishing communities; therefore, input for the proposed project plan is welcome.
