Preserving State of Ohio Electronic Publications
Introduction
Now more than ever, state government agencies are turning to the web to provide information previously available only in paper. This instant access to information saves tax dollars by reducing printing and distribution costs. But the ease by which these publications are added to and removed from the web is creating a dilemma for the State Library of Ohio, which by law is required to collect and maintain comprehensive collections of publications for the State of Ohio.
To resolve this dilemma, the State Library of Ohio is participating in a project to build a sustainable digital archive with the ability to track, preserve and provide long-term access to web-based publications that exist only in electronic form.
In addition to making agency publications more accessible to the public, the State Library of Ohio will create preservation information and preserve the publication digitally in an electronic archive.
What does this mean to my agency?
- Improved access to all your publications: metadata also works with major search engines on the web
- Your publications will be archived thereby guaranteeing future access
- Saves the expense, resources and maintenence time of storing archival copies at your agency site
Why Participate?
The first reason you should participate is that it makes accessing your electronic publications easier for current users. The addition of the metadata enhances the discovery of your Web-based information when your users make use of powerful search engines. This added effort demonstrates your interest in public service. Without this type of indexing, your publications are more difficult to locate and use.
The second reason is that, in addition to making your information more accessible to current users, is it makes it easy to preserve your publication for the historical record.
The State Library of Ohio has been working with state agencies since 1817 (by law since 1957) to provide access to state agencies' information. By participating in this project, you will guarantee access to legacy publications for future generations.
Background Information
The ability of the State Library to capture and catalog "born digital" publications is hit and miss at best. There is no mechanism available to us to monitor all state agencies to determine when a publication has been issued, edited or withdrawn from an agency website.
This lack of awareness, in turn, interferes with our call to archive state publications. We currently try to accomplish this manually but, as you might imagine, the task is enormous. We have been aware of the building concern electronic publications will have on future researchers and have been studying the issues and searching for possible solutions for several years. We will give you a little background on those efforts below.
A Little History
In January 2001, JERRI was born. JERRI (Joint Electronic Records Repository Initiative) is a collaborative partnership among the Technology Policy Group of the Ohio Supercomputer Center, the Ohio Historical Society State Archives, the State Library of Ohio, and the Ohio Department of Administrative Services. The purpose of JERRI is "To appraise, preserve, and provide access to Ohio's electronic and e-commerce records of enduring historical value, and to position Ohio as a leader in archiving electronic records and publications."
A number of projects and activities have spun off of JERRI, each working toward the vision of creating a long-term, accessible digital archive. One spin off project was EP-3 (Electronic Publications Pilot Project), which was funded by a Library Services & Technology Act grant through the State Library of Ohio. This project evaluated the tools necessary to create the foundation of the JERRI Archive, and is now included as pilot participants of the OCLC Digital Archive.
A second spin off project is the PEP (Preserving Electronic Publications) Project. PEP is a collaborative proposal between the state libraries of Illinois and Ohio "to develop a national model for monitoring changes made to electronically published state government documents on the Internet in order to ensure permanent public access." Funding of PEP is through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services' National Leadership Grant program. The purpose of this collaboration, in part, is to develop a standard definition and criteria for identifying, selecting and preserving electronic publications that can be applied nationally.
Revised: 11⁄04