ALPSP and Portico Collaborate on Long-term Digital Preservation Survey

One of the most important issues facing publishers and their library customers is long-term preservation of digital content. More and more scholarly content is published electronically with an increasing amount ‘born digital’ with no print counterpart. This dramatic increase in electronic scholarly resources raises important questions about rights and responsibilities relating to long-term preservation.

Against this background, ALPSP undertook a survey of its members to enhance awareness of long-term digital preservation issues and to establish the nature and extent of strategies that they have planned. The full findings of the survey commissioned from Sarah Durrant of Red Sage Consulting, with co-funding from Portico and ALPSP, are now available to download from the ALPSP website (www.alpsp.org).

Key Findings

• The majority of ALPSP publishers who responded to the survey believe long-term preservation to be a critical issue: 91% either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Long-term preservation is an issue which urgently needs to be addressed within the industry.” 9% were neutral; no-one disagreed.
• ALPSP publishers are strongly motivated to engage with preservation because of its critical importance to their customers, with over 90% of respondents citing this as a major motivating factor: a heartening response for those in the library community.
• Although 68% of publishers reported understanding of preservation issues within their organization to be either ‘good’ or ‘reasonable’, the survey also revealed a wide range of concerns suggesting an overall lack of confidence, at least for the present. The survey revealed a strong desire amongst almost all publishers for the development of ‘best practice’ and industry standards.
• There is some confusion surrounding the nature and extent of publisher participation in long-term preservation schemes, with high numbers of respondents declaring their organization to be participating in one or more initiatives and yet the schemes themselves reporting substantially lower numbers presently taking part.
• Publisher views on who should take responsibility for long-term preservation also reveal some interesting contradictions: despite presently supporting a range of preservation schemes, a significant majority of publishers indicated they would in fact prefer other groups and institutions to take this responsibility on. National libraries in particular were a popular choice.
• Finally, the survey revealed most publishers are clear about the distinction between ensuring long-term access and ensuring long-term preservation, with the majority believing they have clear responsibility for long-term access. A worryingly high number however admit to either not trusting their present strategy or not currently having any strategy to deliver here.

About ALPSP

ALPSP is the international trade association for non-profit publishers and those who work with them. ALPSP was formed in 1972. Today it is the largest trade association for scholarly and professional publishers. It has more than 360 members in 36 countries, publishing scholarly content in many different ways. Over 10,000 journals are published by ALPSP members as well as numerous books, reports, databases and other products and services.

Membership of ALPSP has been taken up by a wide range of different types of publishers – journal publishers, book publishers, learned societies and professional bodies, database publishers, university presses and intergovernmental organizations. The variety and range of the 260+ publisher members and the 100+ associate members who provide services to the sector provides a unique network serving the interests of scholarly publishing worldwide.