Cornell’s Project Harvest

CNI Fall 2001 Task Force Meeting

Anne R. Kenney and Nancy Y. McGovern

Project Harvest Overview• Subject-based approach: agriculture

– National Preservation Plan– USAIN– Mann Library

• Core Historical Literature

• TEEAL

• USDA

• 75% of core journals now available in electronic form

Focus of Planning Year

• Investigating conditions under which publishers willing to participate in the development of an Subject-Based Digital Archives (SBDA)

• Two pronged iterative cycle: – Explore (potential of SBDA, business model,

broader preservation matrix)– Build (using agriculture as pragmatic

application)

PBDA

SBDA

Intersection of Digital Archives

Format-based

USAIN Survey

• Access– 45% indicated need for both print and electronic– 55% indicated e-journal already substituted for

print; – 84% would cancel print if reliable archives built– JSTOR study – 78% of faculty think hard copy

should be retained even if reliable digital archives

USAIN Survey• Observed loss in e-journals:

• 45% don’t know• 22% yes noted difference• 22% no, no difference

• What to preserve (priority order):1. Preserve content plus journal “look and feel” plus

publisher functionality2. Preserve content plus journal “look and feel”

• How to preserve:• Over 90% rejected single solution; prefer multiple

custodians or 3rd party

Sept. 6 Publishers’ Meeting

• American Dairy Science• Academic/Elsevier• American Phytopathological Society• BioOne• CABI• NRC-Canada • Wiley • NLA and USAIN representation

What’s the Publisher Incentive to Archive?

• Protect assets, continuing value of material as it ages

• Low additional overhead

• Satisfy customers

• Risk tolerance; sustainable loss

• As calling card for or bi-product of services

Meeting Results

• All publishers intend to establish archives

• Shift from content currency to database development

• Publishers see revenue stream in retrospective holdings

• Publishers less concerned than librarians about “artifactual” archiving

Meeting Results• Differing perceptions around who should

do digital preservation • Librarians want trusted third-party

archiving• Publishers insufficiently aware that others

don’t trust them to safeguard materials and insufficiently aware of what it takes to archive

• Distrust of government (competition)

Meeting Results

• Publishers not enthusiastic about “lit” archives—some would consider it if revenue returned to publisher

• Convergence in formats• Reluctance to force authors to conform • Unwilling to share proprietary publisher DTD• Willing to consider archival DTD as another

output

Trigger Events

• None acknowledged by publishers

• Technology watersheds:– Retrofitting legacy digital files – When paper no longer represents access and

preservation alternative for electronic

SBDA triggers

• Different subject domains have different half-lives

• When common interests outweigh individual interests

• Stakeholder pressure: when detrimental not to participate

Access and Funding

• Publishers and librarians went into the meeting presuming different things

• Publishers differed on access issues

• Librarians asserted that publishers would have to finance dark archives

SBDA Distinguishes Between Metadata and Data

• Dark metadata/dark data

• Light metadata/light data

• Light metadata/dark data

• Light metadata/no data

Multiple options for different publishers and audiences

SBDA Hybrid Model

• Ultimate goal is lightness• Comprehensiveness and buy-in trumps lightness• Commonality over distinctiveness emphasized• Hybrid model enables combinations of light to

dark metadata and data• Access to metadata/data will change over time

and in response to particular circumstances• Offers win/win possibilities

Possible Sustainability Models

• Preservation surcharge on subscription

• Preservation endowment

• Bartered access privileges for preservation

• Business insurance policy model

• Government support

• Preservation pledge drives

Possible Sustainability Models

Possible Sustainability Models

• Develop new markets

• Harness the free riders• Charge for services, not content and

archiving• Build value-adds on the SBDA

Next Steps

• Developing subject domain profile

• Surveying agricultural publishers to determine level of cooperation in SBDA

• Evaluating existing architectural models

• Writing CLIR report on the significance of the SBDA

Subject-based Profile• Who are the stakeholders? How many publishers?

Research demographics of new user groups? • How big is the field? How structured and defined

is it? What’s important? Why? Change driven by discipline and by technology

• How standardized is the literature? (xml, etc)• How complex/fixed is it? (database, virtual)• Who owns rights for re-use? Assessment of

economic, first-use, citations, second use, technology

How Willing to Cooperate?

• Pre- and post-competitive collaboration• Standardized, normalized, and limited

number of formats• Preservation from conception

(requirements of authors; shut off point for non cooperation)

• Archival DTD• Preservation metadata

How Willing to Cooperate?

• Self certification/ external certification

• Light (and common) metadata, move toward light data (monitoring with scheduling)

• Economy of scale

• Willing to financially support the effort