Contributors and publishers alike know that their scholarly and academic books, educational material, and even some trade titles form an important part of our shared cultural heritage or scholarly record.
Safeguarding that heritage – in the form of archived copies of those books and e-books – is the remit of national libraries, and for digital material, of dark archives committed to long-term preservation.
Copies lodged with these preservation services are secured and inaccessible but may be made available under controlled circumstances following some catastrophic event in the distant future.
Here’s how it works:
The location of an archived copy can be specified using the <Website> composite, usually within the <Publisher> context:
<Publisher>
<PublishingRole>01</PublishingRole> <!-- publisher -->
<PublisherName>Wouters Kluwer</PublisherName>
<Website>
<WebsiteRole>18</WebsiteRole> <!-- publisher’s B2C website -->
<WebsiteLink>https://www.wolterskluwer.com</WebsiteLink>
</Website>
<Website>
<WebsiteRole>48</WebsiteRole> <!-- long-term preservation location -->
<WebsiteLink>https://clockss.org</WebsiteLink>
</Website>
</Publisher>
The example above specifies both the publisher’s own (B2C) website and the website of a third-party preservation service (a publisher’s own dark archive would use role code 47, and digital preservation within a National Library archive can be specified using role code 51). The URL in <WebsiteLink> identifies the particular preservation service or archive. An extended preservation URL may point to metadata to confirm the preservation status of the book – this is recommended where the particular archive’s preservation metadata is publicly accessible.
In addition, the publisher can nominate a role-based contact for queries relating to legal deposit and long-term preservation in the <ProductContact> composite:
<ProductContact>
<ProductContactRole>08</ProductContactRole>. <!-- deposits contact -->
<ProductContactName>Production Dept, My Publisher Inc</ProductContactName>
<EmailAddress>preservation@mypublisher.com</EmailAddress>
</ProductContact>
In this case, the contact is a generic role-based e-mail address, but it could be a named person, and it need not be a contact at the publisher – it could be a contact at the distributor, for example. Role code 08 specifies a contact for purposes of CIP, legal deposit and long-term preservation queries