Status of Dark Archives: A Study of Digital Preservation Initiatives

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current status of digital preservation policy for libraries and publishers using dark archives. Another aim is to examine the status of open-access journals that are being indexed by DOAJ with regard to the adoption of LOCKSS, CLOCKSS and Portico during the process of digital preservation of scholarly research. The study also aims to examine the dark archiving policies of Open Access (OA) journals indexed by DOAJ, to know the status of the adoption of dark archive platforms, to know the preservation status and trigger events pertaining to dark archives and to examine the status of supporting libraries and participating publishers in the context of dark archives. The data for the study was extracted from DOAJ and the dark archive service providers. The data cleaning, filtering and consolidation were done for further analysis and interpretation of the data. Only 35% of open-access journals use preservation policy through dark archives, while 65% of OA journals do not use any dark archive policy. Findings show that 35,000 journal titles are preserved by CLOCKSS and 36,936 journal titles are preserved by Portico. On the other hand, in CLOCKSS, 13,000 articles have been triggered and no books have been triggered. In the case of Portico, 207 triggered events have occurred. The findings of the study throw light on the usability and applicability of long-term digital preservation (LTDP) of valued research with empirical evidences. Dark Archives facilitate trigger events shift the otherwise inaccessible (dark) into publicly accessible (light) so that the society at large can derive value and innovate.

Keywords: Dark Archive, Long-Term Digital Preservation, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico, DOAJ

View PDF