Archiving of electronic publications — some thoughts on cost

As many readers of Learned Publishing will know, the current legal deposit legislation extends only to printed publications and does not cover the increasing range of publications in electronic form. Concern has been growing, not just among the scholarly community, but also among publishers, that information distributed in electronic form is not being archived and will not be available to the scholars and writers of the future. Following the recommendations on extending legal deposit to cover such publications, which were submitted to government by a committee chaired by Sir Anthony Kenny, it was agreed that representatives of the legal deposit libraries and publishers’ interests (including the Publishers Association, ALPSP, the Directory Publishers Association, and the Periodical Publishers Association) should meet to try and set up a voluntary scheme for the archiving of electronic publications. This group drew up a code of practice which came into effect from Jan. 2000, and many publishers are now depositing their publications in accordance with this code. The group, now the Joint Committee on Voluntary Deposit, meets regularly to monitor the effectiveness of the voluntary scheme and to work together on issues that need to be addressed. Formally the code at present covers only offline electronic publications such as CDROMs. There is, however, wide recognition of the importance of ensuring the archiving and preservation of the content of online publications for long-term use beyond their commercial lifespan, and that the legal deposit libraries are likely to be the institutions best suited to undertake this role. Work is going on under the auspices of the Joint Committee to explore issues and practicalities relating to the deposit and archiving of some types of online publications. This article makes the assumption that e-journals and e-books will in due course be included in the material to be archived. Before any legislation is enacted, the government requires the preparation of a Regulatory Impact Assessment, which assesses the cost both to business and to the exchequer of the implementation of the legislation. Publishers will, of course, be able to calculate what the impact might be on their own business; the purpose of this editorial is to indicate some of the costs that libraries or digital archives will face, and to suggest that publishers and libraries might collaborate to reduce the overall costs to both parties. A number of organizations already have experience in archiving digital files of varying types over lengthy periods – the Data Archive at the University of Essex, the Public Record Office, scientific bodies, and commercial organizations are obvious examples. On the whole, however, the types of data that they archive tend to be less varied, and the information that they receive about them more complete, than the types of file likely to be received under any potential legal deposit legislation. Several projects are under way in this country, in the United States, in Australia, and among European Union national libraries, to seek to develop models for the longterm archiving of digital materials. Part of this modelling includes attempts to assess the likely costs of establishing and maintaining such archives, and the Cedars Project (CURL Exemplars in Digital ARchiveS, run on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Councils by the Consortium of University Research Libraries) has sought to identify some of the cost elements (www.cedars.ac.uk). It is still far from clear what a long-term commitment to digital archiving will mean in terms of costs, as there are a large number of variables (e.g. the archiving model selected, how responsibility is allocated among institutions, the technical strategy chosen for preservation, and the type of access required). Guest Editorial 3