April 6, 2016

Report from the Repositories & Preservation Workgroup

Repositories are a vital tool in modern information management and a key component of preser­vation and long-term availability. They are not well-suited, however, to the current chal­lenges posed by our information-rich society and the multitude of stakeholders involved in the modern scholarly publishing system. Strengthening repositories and standardizing preserva­tion processes are critically important. This challenge will require not only leading multi­ple stakeholder groups but also reforming multiple information systems, architectures, phi­losophies, practices, and more.

Workgroup Question

Are we satisfied with the current state of global knowledge preservation? What are the current­ preservation methods? Who are the actors? Is this system satisfactory? What role do institu­tional repositories play in this process? What does the future hold for these repositories (taking into account linking efforts, publishing company concerns about revenue declines, wide­spread dark archiving practices, and so on)? Would new mandates help (or do we simply need to tighten existing mandates so they actually compel authors to do certain things)? And how do versions of record figure into all of this—that is, how do archiving poli­cies (with regard to differences between pre-journal and post-journal versions) affect knowledge accurac­y­ and transfer? How can digital preservation advance open scholarship?

Open Scholarship Initiative Proceedings, Volume 1, 2016