Resolved: The Committee finds that a) the growing importance of digital materials in the composition of the University’s research collections calls for a thoughtful reconsideration of the archival mission of the UC libraries and the means of achieving that mission in the emerging environment of integrated print and digital collections; and that b) owing to the considerable and growing pressures on the University’s budgetary resources, particularly capital budgets, it is imperative that this process begin immediately. To that end, the Committee endorses the implementation, beginning no later than January 2001, of experiments that will help the University increase its understanding of strategies for creating a durable, reliable archive of its digital collections and of the issues arising from the development and implementation of these strategies.

Background: The University faces the challenge of accommodating up to 60,000 new student enrollments over the next ten years, while continuing to address urgent seismic safety deficiencies, replace deteriorating campus infrastructure, upgrade critical but obsolescent instruction and research facilities, and manage a growing deferred maintenance backlog. Existing and expected capital budget resources are insufficient to meet this challenge. The University has a compelling interest in managing existing library facilities so as to accommodate continually-growing collections of library material in print format while relieving the pressure, wherever possible, on its overtaxed capital program. One way to accomplish this is to use digital technologies to assist the University in meeting these various needs.

A key mission of the University of California Libraries is to archive, preserve, and provide access to materials in its collections that are of enduring research value, both for the benefit of UC’s faculty and students and of the broader society. The means of achieving this mission will need to be reinterpreted in the emerging environment of integrated print and digital collections. Uncertainty about technologies, methods and costs of ensuring durable digital archives means that a new understanding of the archival role will not be arrived at quickly, and should not be undertaken in haste. However, the budgetary pressures faced by the University underscore the importance of beginning that process immediately. It is important that the University increase its understanding of strategies for creating a durable, reliable archive of its digital collections, the issues for library management of both digital and printed materials, and support of University research and instruction arising from the development and implementation of these strategies.

Useful experiments to address these issues must reflect the current and planned composition of the relevant digital collections of the University, that is, they should include material from a broad range of disciplines and a variety of digital publishing sources, models, and archival strategies. The experiments should also be designed to accommodate various ways different disciplines use the published materials. Because retrospective conversion of published material to digital form will occur very slowly, the focus of experimentation should include current and prospective acquisitions in print and digital format as well as management of retrospective materials available in both formats.

The University Librarians formed a Universitywide committee to explore these issues. The Task Force on Collaborative Strategies for Archiving of Print in the Digital Environment is preparing a draft recommendation. Digital journals produced by JSTOR will be part of the recommendation. JSTOR is a non-profit membership organization supported by major U.S. research institutions with a stated commitment to create and sustain permanent archival digital copies of backfiles of major academic journals. The Task Force proposal represents a useful point of departure for development of the action programs envisioned by SLASIAC, but it will need to be broadened to include a greater variety of disciplines and publishers. Because JSTOR does not provide digital copies of the most recent issues of the titles it covers, the proposal will also need to include management of current and prospective collections.

Initiative: As a first step in the guided experimentation called for in this Resolution, the Committee endorses the development and implementation of an action program for a broad selection of journal titles currently or prospectively acquired by UC in both print and digital form. This program should ensure the archival retention of high-quality print copies of each title at the University’s Regional Library Facilities and to explore the feasibility of reliance on the electronic copies of these journals to meet the various usage requirements of the UC community. The plan for the experiment should permit restoration of the selected materials to campus collections at the end of the experimental period. The titles should be selected to include multiple publishers and represent a wide variety of academic disciplines, in consultation with faculty and librarians representing those disciplines. The Committee anticipates that detailed planning for this initiative can be completed during calendar year 2000, and implementation can commence in January, 2001, coterminous with the beginning of the annual subscription for most academic journals. Owing to the complexities of the proposed project, a phased approach to both implementation of selected titles and participation by the campuses may be necessary, although the Committee expects full implementation and nine-campus participation by January, 2002. The Committee wishes to periodically evaluate the outcomes of this experiment, with special attention to added costs, savings (in operating expenses and space savings), and mission-related service issues.

Issues to be resolved:

• Because future archival collection will consist of both print and digital formats, it is important to assess the balance between print and digital versions in archival library collections. The number and location of archival print copies to be retained is a key issue in defining this balance. The factors to be considered in this assessment include format and character of content, the accessibility of the material, the usage requirement of faculty and students in various disciplines, the risk of deterioration or catastrophic loss, and the costs of alternatives to manage those risks. As a result of these multiple factors, the balance point may vary for different kinds of materials or for different disciplines.

• Campuses may achieve space savings by ceasing binding and storing on campus the print copies of digital archival titles. However, there are cost and service factors and operational issues associated with this strategy that must be identified and assessed as part of this experiment.

• The creation of a permanent print archival copy for any particular title available in digital form entails several issues of significance that must be explored and resolved. These include means of creating a complete and uninterrupted archive of print volumes, assembling the best-quality archival copy from the holdings of multiple campuses, and resolving the questions of "ownership" of the archival print copy.