August 11, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Pamela Higgins
(410) 516-8337
pamela.higgins@jhu.edu

Libraries and Press at Johns Hopkins Sign Agreements with Portico
Non-Profit Service Provides Electronic Archiving of Scholarly Journals

The Johns Hopkins University Press and University Libraries have jointly announced their participation in Portico, a nonprofit service that provides low-cost digital archiving for publishers and guarantees preservation and access to libraries.  Winston Tabb, Sheridan dean of  university libraries, and Kathleen Keane, director of the JHU Press, signed licensing agreements at the end of July that provide perpetual access to a permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals.  

“Portico provides a means to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and ensures that these materials remain accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students,” commented Dean Tabb.  “We are pleased to join our colleagues at the Hopkins Press as Portico Archive Founders since the services provided by Portico benefit both libraries and publishing communities.” 

 The agreement will provide the five Hopkins libraries guaranteed access to Portico’s full archive of an estimated 7,000 electronic journals, thereby providing protection against the potential loss of access to e-literature that is integral to the collection.  Currently, fifteen leading publishers have entrusted their journals to the Portico archive, including Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Institute of Physics. With one of the largest journals publishing operations among university presses in the United States, Hopkins Press will provide digital files for its 60 journals to Portico for long term storage.  “A real benefit for presses is that Portico plans to manage an archival function for our library customers,” noted Press Director Kathleen Keane.  “It would be a significant expense for each publisher to do this independently, so Portico and its funders are providing an extremely valuable service for publishers and libraries who want to ensure that their electronic publications will be available for the long term.”

Portico does not replace agreements between publishers and libraries for access to electronic publications; rather, it guarantees preservation and permanent access to electronic materials under circumstances such as a publisher ceasing operations or the catastrophic and sustained failure of a publishers’ delivery platform.   It relieves both libraries and publishers of the burden and expense of creating and sustaining permanent electronic archives.

Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of Ithaka Harbors, Inc., and an electronic archiving service, known as Portico, was developed and launched in 2005 with additional support from JSTOR, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Now that Portico is operational, participating publishers and libraries agree to pay an annual fee to sustain the archive.

The Johns Hopkins University Press was founded in 1878 and is America’s oldest university press.  The Johns Hopkins University libraries include the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, the Welch Medical Library, the Arthur Friedheim Library at the Peabody Institute, the R.E. Gibson Library at the Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Sidney R. and Elsa W. and Mason Library at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Together these collections provide the research library resources for the university, serving Hopkins’ academic programs worldwide.  For more information about Portico, visit http://www.portico.org. 

For information about participation in Portico at Johns Hopkins, contact Bill Breichner at the JHU Press at 410-516-6985; or Pamela Higgins at the JHU Libraries at 410-516-8337.

The Sheridan Libraries encompass the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and its collections at the Hutzler Reading Room, Garrett Library and the George Peabody Library.

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