Piloting an E-journals Preservation Registry Service (PEPRS)

It has been estimated that there are approximately 66,000 e-journals in existence with around 15,000 being scholarly journals. There are particular issues appertaining to journals in electronic format which do not apply to journals in printed format. Essentially a library pays for access but that access is not necessarily guaranteed over time. A number of organisations now take responsibility for preserving e-journals but it is recognised that there exists an overall lack of information about where e-journals are archived and what arrangements exist for access. PEPRS is a two year funded project with the objective of exploring the provision of pilot services to fill the information gap. EDINA, which is a national data centre running information services for higher education in the UK, based at the University of Edinburgh, has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committed (JISC) to carry out the work in partnership with the International Standard Serial Number International Centre (ISSN IC) in Paris. The agencies involved are: British Library; CLOCKSS; E-Depot at Koninklijke Bibliotheek; LOCKSS and Portico. Essentially data from the ISSN IC will be linked to data from the agencies to provide appropriate services. Discussions have been held with staff from the agencies and a first pass pilot demonstrator is scheduled to be available in October to allow time for testing and evaluation and release of a system to undergo external testing in February 2010