Microtome Publishing has announced that it will create a print archive of the open-access Journal of Machine Learning Research. From the press release (October 12, 2004): "Open access journals such as JMLR make their contents freely and instantly available worldwide over digital networks. But access is only part of the role of a journal; long-term archiving must be managed as well. The archival status of digital data is untested over long periods, and in any case, the most optimistic expectations for digital archiving assume active maintenance (refreshing, migration) at relatively frequent intervals. Thus, the use of acid-free paper archiving is a prudent step for scholarly publications, at least until such time as alternative mechanisms have "shaken out" and demonstrated their potential for longevity....Microtome Publishing was founded by Stuart Shieber, Welch Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, to provide just such innovative services in support of open access. According to Professor Shieber, 'Some open access journals have partnered with traditional publishers to provide print versions of their journals. Unfortunately, because they are geared toward traditional journal publishing, rather than print archiving, traditional publishers have continued legacy practices of printing multiple issues per year (as if the print version was needed for access), stipulating page counts and running backlogs, distributing in non-archival bindings, and operating at high overheads with concomitant high journal costs. Increasingly, traditional publishers are dropping print versions of open access journals because they can't make the types of profits they are used to. Open access print archiving is an effective alternative to traditional print versions of open access journals to provide for their long-term archiving economically and efficiently.'" For more information, see Microtome's backgrounder, What is Open Access Print Archiving?
(PS: Congratulations to Microtome. This is a useful service, introduced early enough in the revolution to accelerate it by helping OA journals answer concerns about preservation. If I may quote myself from 2002: "So far, paper is the only commonly used medium that we know can preserve texts for hundreds of years. There are many creative methods emerging for storing digital texts electronically with at least the security of paper....The only problem is that it will take hundreds of years to monitor the outcome of present-day experiments. But we don't have to choose between insecure storage and retreat from the digital revolution: the short cut to preservation is to print digital texts on paper.")
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/16/2004 01:48:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
