Libraries and Press at Johns Hopkins Sign Agreements with

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:57:38 EDT
From: LLK@press.jhu.edu
To: liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu
Subject: Libraries and Press at Johns Hopkins Sign Agreements with
	Portico

August 14, 2006 - For Immediate Release

Libraries and Press at Johns Hopkins Sign Agreements with Portico 
Non-Profit Service Provides Electronic Archiving of Scholarly 
Journals

The Johns Hopkins University Press and University Libraries have 
jointly announced their participation in Portico, a nonprofit 
service that provides low-cost digital archiving for publishers 
and guarantees preservation and access to libraries.  Winston 
Tabb, Sheridan dean of university libraries, and Kathleen Keane, 
director of the JHU Press, signed licensing agreements at the end 
of July that provide perpetual access to a permanent archive of 
electronic scholarly journals.

"Portico provides a means to preserve scholarly literature 
published in electronic form and ensures that these materials 
remain accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students," 
commented Dean Tabb. "We are pleased to join our colleagues at 
the Hopkins Press as Portico Archive Founders since the services 
provided by Portico benefit both libraries and publishing 
communities."

The agreement will provide the five Hopkins libraries guaranteed 
access to Portico's full archive of an estimated 7,000 electronic 
journals, thereby providing protection against the potential loss 
of access to e-literature that is integral to the collection. 
Currently, fifteen leading publishers have entrusted their 
journals to the Portico archive, including Elsevier, Wiley, and 
the American Institute of Physics. With one of the largest 
journals publishing operations among university presses in the 
United States, Hopkins Press will provide digital files for its 
60 journals to Portico for long term storage.  "A real benefit 
for presses is that Portico plans to manage an archival function 
for our library customers," noted Press Director Kathleen Keane. 
"It would be a significant expense for each publisher to do this 
independently, so Portico and its funders are providing an 
extremely valuable service for publishers and libraries who want 
to ensure that their electronic publications will be available 
for the long term."

Portico does not replace agreements between publishers and 
libraries for access to electronic publications; rather, it 
guarantees preservation and permanent access to electronic 
materials under circumstances such as a publisher ceasing 
operations or the catastrophic and sustained failure of a 
publishers' delivery platform.  It relieves both libraries and 
publishers of the burden and expense of creating and sustaining 
permanent electronic archives.

Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by 
JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 
In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of 
Ithaka Harbors, Inc., and an electronic archiving service, known 
as Portico, was developed and launched in 2005 with additional 
support from JSTOR, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and The 
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Now that Portico is operational, 
participating publishers and libraries agree to pay an annual fee 
to sustain the archive.

The Johns Hopkins University Press was founded in 1878 and is 
America's oldest university press.  The Johns Hopkins University 
libraries include the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, the Welch 
Medical Library, the Arthur Friedheim Library at the Peabody 
Institute, the R.E. Gibson Library at the Applied Physics 
Laboratory, and the Sidney R. and Elsa W. and Mason Library at 
the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. 
Together these collections provide the research library resources 
for the university, serving Hopkins' academic programs worldwide. 
For more information about Portico, visit http://www.portico.org.

For information about participation in Portico at Johns Hopkins, 
contact Bill Breichner at the JHU Press at 410-516-6985; or 
Pamela Higgins at the JHU Libraries at 410-516-8337.

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