Elsevier Announces Agreement with Portico

Elsevier, a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information, today announced an agreement with Portico, a not-for-profit digital preservation service, to aid ScienceDirect, Elsevier's online STM platform, in addressing the challenges of eBook preservation. This agreement will ensure that ScienceDirect's eBook content is protected for the future.

The burgeoning growth of digital content of all types has created questions and concerns about the lifespan of archived materials, and the realization that information that is available today, may at some point deteriorate or otherwise become inaccessible.

Portico specializes in digital preservation of electronic scholarly resources that allows archived files to remain usable and complete as technology and file formats evolve. The agreement will allow ScienceDirect to implement a safeguard plan that ensures technological preservation for its entire collection of eBooks, and is designed to meet the research demands of ScienceDirect's customers.

"This relationship represents yet another example of our commitment to preserve scholarly content," said Rafael Sidi, Director, ScienceDirect. "Users can feel secure knowing that eBooks on ScienceDirect will be available for perpetuity."

ScienceDirect users will now have further assurance of permanent access to all archived materials taken from Elsevier's rich scientific research platform. Portico is the only archive that holds both the Elsevier eBooks and the entire journal Backfiles collection.

"Preservation of electronic scholarly resources, including e-books, is now critical as library expenditures on digital resources continue to expand significantly," said Eileen Fenton, Portico's Executive Director. "We are pleased to work with Elsevier to ensure that these materials and the scholarly record are robustly preserved for use by future generations."

There are currently over 4,400 eBooks on ScienceDirect. The archiving of the books will begin in Q3 2008. For more information on ScienceDirect, the partnership, and about eBooks on ScienceDirect.

Source: Elsevier