CLOCKSS and CrossRef Collaboration Makes it Easier to Find Discontinued Journal Articles

CLOCKSS and CrossRef have implemented the means to track articles from discontinued journals using the CrossRef DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) originally assigned to the articles. When a published journal or other content is no longer available from a publisher, an archive that stores that content experiences a “trigger event.” CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) experienced its first trigger events with the SAGE Publications’ journals Auto/Biography and Graft and Oxford University Press’ Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention. These events led to the discovery that CrossRef would need to accommodate multiple DOI resolution, as the affected titles were stored in multiple archives. All three titles are now available for free at http://www.clockss.org/clockss/Triggered_Content.

“Two important tenets of CrossRef’s mission are persistence and cooperation,” said Ed Pentz, Executive Director of CrossRef. “Making sure that the CrossRef DOIs that have been assigned to content that has moved from a publisher journal platform to an archive still resolve to the articles is an important part of that persistence. Persistence is not only achieved through technology but by cooperation: CrossRef, publishers, journal hosting services, and the archiving organizations have all worked together to ensure continued access to the scholarly record. These journals are particularly strong examples of the system in action as there are multiple archives available to guarantee ongoing access.”

“The CLOCKSS Archive, the community-governed archiving initiative with broad support from publishers large and small, CrossRef, and the library community, has made all three journals openly available from two geographically separate sites,” notes Gordon Tibbitts, Co-Chair CLOCKSS Board of Directors. CLOCKSS truly serves the world’s scholars by ensuring content no longer available from any publisher is available to everyone for free.”

The following are live examples of CrossRef DOIs from each of the archived journals:

Auto/Biographyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0967550706ab044oa

Brief Treatment and Crisis Interventionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brief-treatment/mhg012

Grafthttp://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1522162802239753

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