How can digitized journals remain secure? Will the discarding of print and uptake of electronic journals create unforeseen vulnerabilities for future scholarship? We ask ourselves these questions quite often at JSTOR and have come to recognize that we must pursue at least three levels of security in our stewardship of scholarly journals.

First and foremost, we must assure our supporters that the digitized files we create will not be lost or destroyed. JSTOR has always been vigilant in pursuing this objective. To provide protection against loss, we have established redundant data centers, two in the U.S., one in the U.K., and each one has at least one complete and fully functional copy of the entire archive.

Second, the cost savings associated with discarding print copies has always been an intended benefit of JSTOR. However, realizing this benefit brings with it a responsibility to ensure that several complete runs of these journals are preserved, both for the benefit of the scholarly community and as a 'last resort' in case JSTOR ever needs to revisit source documents.

Finally, the question of access, though separate from archiving, is entwined with how we assure the academic community of the security and integrity of the works entrusted to our care. Certainly no one believes that a temporary loss of access implies an unsafe archive. Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to the scholarly community to provide reliable access, both to enable the work of scholars and to provide a means for verifying the safety and integrity of the material.

In this issue of JSTORNEWS, we describe two initiatives undertaken this year to increase the security and availability of JSTOR: the establishment of two paper repositories, and the addition of a commercial-grade data center. I hope you will let us know whenever you have comments or questions about the archive and our ever-evolving plans to secure it.

Michael P. Spinella

 

Last updated on September 8, 2006