Helping Librarians Make a Secure Transition to e-Resources:
Understanding Portico
COLD
Central Michigan University
September 25, 2008
David FritschAssistant Director, Library Relations
Portico
Libraries Moving Steadily to e-Only:factors driving the transition
• Improved discoverability and remote access
•High cost of maintaining dual formats (p + e):
– Staff reductions limit print processing capabilities
– Space limitations inhibit print storage.
•Print is susceptible to mother nature and takes up valuable floor space.
• Increased availability of e-content:
– “Approximately 60% of the universe of some 20,000 active peer-reviewed journals is available in electronic form.”
– Definitive versions are now online renditions
– Online becoming only option
Judy Luther and Richard Johnson, The e-Only Tipping Point for Journals (Washington: Association of Research Libraries,2006).
Librarians concerned with assuring long-term institutional access to e-content
If users are to remain connected to e-content, then reliable and trustworthy digital preservation solutions must be sought and implemented.
•E-content is licensed, not owned as with print
•E-content licensing varies among publishers, particularly following cancellation
•E-content is fragile, technology dependent
•E-content analog, i.e. print, is not practical “insurance”
What is Digital Preservation?
•Many definitions!
• June 2008: The Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) announced a definition of digital preservation: www.ala.org/ala/alcts/newslinks/digipres/index.cfm.
•Core element of digital preservation:
– Set of activities aimed towards ensuring access to digital materials over time:
• Ongoing, managed activities
• Combines policies, strategies, and actions
• Lifecycle management from point of creation
What is Digital Preservation?
•“Open Archives Information Systems” (OAIS): ISO Standard for functional design of digital archives.
• “Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities”: RLG/OCLC characteristics and organizational responsibilities of digital archives:
• OAIS Compliance
• Administrative Responsibility
• Organizational Viability
• Financial Sustainability
• Technological Stability
• System Security
•Procedural Accountability
What Digital Preservation Is Not
•Digitization for Preservation - Digitization of print results in digital materials which must themselves be preserved!
•Back-up or byte storage on various media
•Mirror sites or networks designed for reliable delivery
JSTOR Responds to Digital Preservation Challenge
• In 2002, JSTOR initiated a project known as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative to develop a technological infrastructure and sustainable business model to preserve scholarly e-journals.
• Concluded that digital preservation requires significant infrastructure – technological, organizational, and staff expertise – and an economic model to support the ongoing work.
• Portico was launched in 2005 by JSTOR, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Library of Congress.
Understanding Portico
What is Portico?
•Non-for-profit
•Exclusive focus on digital preservation
1) An Organization
“To preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure that these materials remain available to future generations of scholars,
researchers, and students.”
What is Portico?
•Centralized, yet geographically replicated repository of current content (“born digital”) or digitized print (“reborn digital”).
•Maintains formal archiving agreements with publishers to collect and preserve content.
•Range from commercial, university press, and professional society publishers.
•Content cannot be removed.
2) An Archive
What is Portico?
2) An Archive
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Titles
2,500
7,500
5,000
10,000
12 Publishers
250,000 articles
28 Publishers
3.6 million articles
57 Publishers
7.8 million articles
Journals (57)
• Initial focus on e-journal preservation
What is Portico?
2) An Archive
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Titles
2,500
7,500
5,000
10,000
12 Publishers
250,000 articles
28 Publishers
3.6 million articles
57 Publishers
7.8 million articles
Journals (57)
d-collections
library collections
• Initial focus on e-journal preservation, moving to e-books, d-collections and local library content.
e-Books (1)
1 Publisher
What is Portico?
•Preserves the intellectual content of the journal, including the text, images, and limited functionality such as internal linking. XML source file and PDF page rendition are supplied by publisher and ingested in the Archive.
•Utilizes the best practice of managed preservation migrate e-content based on archival robustness of file format.
2) An Archive
PDF/APDF/1.6
DeliveryArchive
What is Portico?
•Libraries make annual archive support payment to help defray cost of long-term preservation.
•Receive access to archived materials should they become lost, orphaned, or abandoned Trigger Event:
3) An Insurance Policy for Libraries
– When a publisher ceases operations and titles are no longer available from any other source
– When a publisher ceases to publish and offer a title and it is not offered by another publisher or entity
– When back issues are removed from a publisher’s offering and are not available elsewhere.
– Upon catastrophic failure by publisher delivery platform for a sustained period of time.
Trigger events initiate access to a participating library regardless of whether they previously subscribed to the title(s).
What is Portico?
•Libraries may rely upon the Portico archive for post-cancellation access, if a publisher chooses to name Portico as one of the mechanisms designated to meet this obligation.
•Approximately 85% of archived titles have post-cancellation access coverage by Portico.
3) An Insurance Policy for Libraries
Portico, Publishers, and Libraries: Partnering to enable a secure transition from
print to e-resources
The Portico, Publisher, Library Partnership
• Robust preservation service protects content against technology obsolescence, fading human recall, and media deterioration.
• Trusted, third-party archive of electronic scholarly content.
• 469 library participants, from large university systems to small liberal arts colleges; ~30% are International participants from 13 countries.
• Global library community supports the shared infrastructure which reduces preservation cost for individual libraries.
Publishers
Portico
Libraries
• Formal relationship with Portico assures efficient and ongoing preservation.
• Supply source file content.
• Make financial contribution.
A Secure Transition – Responding to a Trigger Event
SAGE Publications dropped Graft 12/31/07…
A Secure Transition
…and all Portico participants were provided access to Graft on 1/1/2008
Making a Secure Transition: Library Participation in Portico
1. Cost-effective investment in the long-term preservation of e-scholarship.
2. Eliminates the need to purchase print as “insurance” for analogous e-versions.
3. Reduces floor space needs for storing print; facilitates re-capturing or re-purposing valuable space in the library.
Portico Enabling a Secure Transition
•An ARL library undergoing a rolling renovation to provide for more computer workstations and group-study areas is using Portico to inform their decision about moving print to offsite storage.
•Medium-sized publicly funded college library responding to mandated 5% budget cut is using Portico to help decide print cancellations.
•Medium private institution is using Portico to reduce microfilm holdings.
Holdings Comparison Analysis
•Free service available to both participating and non-participating libraries.
•Compares library’s journal holdings – both print and electronic – to what is being preserved in Portico.
•Spreadsheet of library ISSNs with Portico status of each:
Not-committed
Committed
Archived
And indication of whether the publisher of the ISSN has designated Portico as a post-cancellation access mechanism
