Archival management of electronic journals in academic libraries

Abstract

With more scholarly journals being published electronically, ensuring long-term accessibility of electronic journals has become a very important concern to most academic libraries and scholarly communities. This report studies the major electronic journal archiving issues related to academic libraries. New Zealand university libraries are particularly taken as an example to investigate the suitable electronic journal archiving models for academic libraries. The research is mainly based on extensive online search, current literature study, on-site observation, and discussion with librarians who have electronic journal management experience in New Zealand university libraries. After identifying the problems existing in electronic journal archival management, four major aspects of electronic journal archiving are discussed in this report. The first aspect is concerned with technology issues involved in electronic journal archival management. The second aspect is about different electronic journal archiving models offered by electronic journal publishers, and aggregators. Electronic journal archiving models initiated by libraries comprises the third aspect, which gives a description and analysis of some typical electronic journal archiving projects in the world. The final aspect is about New Zealand university libraries' e-journal archiving situation and possible models that can be used in the future.