Open Access and Digital Preservation

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Open Access and Digital Preservation

• Anticipating Change
• Protecting the Future
• Stephen M. Cristol, MD, MPH, PhD
• Department of Ophthalmology
• Emory University

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Challenge
Design publishing systems for open, digital
journals Scale from 10 to 1000 articles per year
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The Wild, Wild Web 1995-1998
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Goals

• Maintain functionality and accessibility in the
  face of evolving standards
• Ease of use
• Don't mortgage the future

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Two sides of a coin
Accessibility and preservation are closely
related problems Accessibility make content
available to the largest possible
market Preservation protect existing content
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Accessibility
Designing for long term accessibility is about
predicting what will be available in the future.
That has to be balanced with short term
issues. Example the Ogg Vorbis format for audio
content is open and unencumbered by intellectual
property issues
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Preservation
Physical preservation assures the continued
existence of content. Logical preservation
assures that content can be interpreted.
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Physical media
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Physical preservation
Physical preservation is more than backing up
data. Mechanisms are needed to validate the
content to be archived (external archivists) and
to check the integrity of copies over
time Journals that offers live errata
complicate this process.
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A spreadsheet
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Logical preservation
Logical preservation requires vigilance to assure
that access to a particular file format is not
lost. Potentially, at risk formats can be
translated. Example VisiCalc format (.vc) is
at risk, formats like Data Interchange Format
(.dif) and SYLK (.slk) currently remain healthy
and would be candidates to be a rescue format for
VisiCalc files
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Molecular Vision architecture

• Primary format (HSM) of the journal is an ASCII
  based mark up language
• Secondary formats (HTML, PDF) are generated from
  the primary format
• Limit acceptable formats for ancillary files
  (images, movies, archives,...)

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Primary format HSM
\article \titleThe surface of visual arrestin
that binds to rhodopsin \authors\mailtocsmith_at_
eye1.eye.ufl.eduW. Clay Smith,\sup1,2
Astra Dinculescu,\sup1 James J.
Peterson,\sup3 J. Hugh McDowell\sup1 \instit
utionsDepartments of \sup1Ophthalmology
and \sup2Neuroscience, University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL \sup3Department of Biology,
Kansas State University, Manhattan,
KS \correspondenceDr. W. Clay Smith,
Department of Ophthalmology, Box 100284, JHMHC,
Gainesville, FL, 32610-0284 Phone (352)
392-0476 FAX [phone] email
csmith_at_eye1.eye.ufl.edu \abstract \abs_purpose
The binding of visual arrestin to phosphorylated,
activated rhodopsin serves as a model for
studying the inactivation process of a large
class of G-protein coupled receptor systems. In
this study, we combine the use of insertional
mutagenesis, fluorescence labeling, and scanning
alanine mutagenesis to identify the surface of
interaction between arrestin and
rhodopsin. \abs_methodsThe ten amino acid myc
tag (EQKLISEEDL) was inserted in
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Secondary format HTML
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Molecular Vision file formats
ASCII formats HSM, HTML, text, PDB
(open) Binary formats GIF (now unencumbered),
JPEG (open), Zip (open), PDF (open), QuickTime
(encumbered by codecs)
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Accessibility meets preservation
For publishers to get the maximum benefit from
their efforts, there needs to be an interface
between publishers and librarians.
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Legal issues

• Licensing agreements are probably going to be
  important in preserving recent works.
• Creative Commons licenses
• Open content licenses (deprecated)
• Public domain (probably a bad idea)

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Mirrors and repositories
Mirrors and repositories have great potential for
physical preservation, but don't directly address
the problems of logical preservation.
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Summary
Publishers and librarians have an interest in
preserving content. Cooperation between these
groups will benefit both.