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Archive and Use Policy

Description | Policy | FAQ | Task Force | AIP Partners with Portico

Frequently Asked Questions About AIP's Archive Policy

How to Use this FAQ
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Questions

1. Why doesn't the policy address important library concerns about fair use, such as interlibrary loan, etc.?

2. How will locations for secondary archives be chosen?

3. How will AIP finance its commitment to maintenance of the archive?

4. What is meant by "The primary source material archive will not be used for active delivery?"

5. What is meant by "refreshing?"

6. What is meant by "migration?"

7. Must existing customers sign a new Subscriber Agreement every time changes are made to the Agreement?

8. What will be included in the "physical archive copy?"

9. How much will the physical archive copy cost?

Answers:

1. Why doesn't the policy address important library concerns about fair use, such as interlibrary loan, etc.? AIP's position regarding fair use in the online environment is evolving in response to the ongoing discussions in the library and publishing community. It was felt that evolving issues such as how fair use applies in the online environment were best handled in the Subscriber Agreement, where it is possible to respond faster to changes in current thinking and practice.

2. How will locations for secondary archives be chosen? AIP will choose secondary archive sites only after careful discussions with administrative representatives of the proposed site and representatives of the library community to ensure that the site(s) that are chosen will agree to participate on time scales measured in decades, not just years. Consideration will also be given to sites offering wide geographic separation from AIP's Melville, NY Publishing Center, where the primary archive will be held.

3. How will AIP finance its commitment to maintenance of the archive? AIP is still studying this issue. For the first few years, it will be possible to fund archive maintenance tasks out of general revenues, but as time goes on, this will become more difficult. A variety of approaches is being studied, including set-aside of a portion of subscription revenues, separation of subscriptions into current awareness and archival portions, and other options.

4. What is meant by "The primary source material archive will not be used for active delivery?" The primary archive must remain separate from any possibility of unauthorized alteration, as might occur if it was used in the active online system. Consequently, the primary archive will be held on media that are separate and distinct from AIP's online service.

5 . What is meant by "refreshing?" Refreshing is that process which ensures that the medium chosen for archival storage remains free of errors. Techniques used to refresh an archive include the periodic retensioning and verification of magnetic tapes, the periodic copying of archives from existing media to new media of the same type or of new type, and the verification of file existence against the master archive file list.

6. What is meant by "migration?" Migration involves the transformation of archival data from one format to another. For example, one archival format in which article figures are being stored is JPEG (Joint Photographers Expert Group). At some point in the future, a new standard may supercede JPEG (perhaps "JPEG2" or some other designation). At that point, AIP will decide if transformation of all JPEG figures in the archive is warranted. Such decisions will be primarily based on whether the tools that use the new standard continue support for files in the prior standard. If they do not, then the archive format should be migrated.

7. Must existing customers sign a new Subscriber Agreement every time changes are made to the Agreement? No, only when the changes are so substantial as to require all customers to sign the new Agreement. For example, a new version of the Subscriber Agreement is being developed coincident with AIP's first-time offering of online only subscriptions, but only those current "print plus online" customers ordering online only subs for 1999 will be required to sign a new Agreement. (Of course, all new first-time subscribers will sign the new version, as it will be the "current version" when they first subscribe.)

8. What will be included in the "physical archive copy?" AIP is still considering what will be included. At a minimum, the archive copy will include PDF files for all articles and tables of contents and SGML files of bibliographic and classification information (including abstracts). For 1999, the physical archive delivery format will be CD-ROM.

9. How much will the physical archive copy cost? For 1999, the archive price is $50 per journal, except for Chaos, which is $25. It is our intent that the archive copy will always be priced at a point that will just cover its production and replication costs.