E-journals preservation registry: launch of the PEPRS beta service

 EDINA and the ISSN International Centre are pleased to announce the Beta release of PEPRS, the e-journals preservation registry service. This is the product of JISC-funded project activity, and provides freely available means to discover which e-journals are being preserved by the leading archival organisations - highlighting those e-journals for which no arrangement is on record.

The PEPRS Beta service is available at http://www.peprs.org/
The ISSN Governing Board met in Paris on Thursday 28th April to launch formally the Beta service and to confirm its wholehearted and continuing support for the PEPRS project and the new service. PEPRS is expected to have international appeal and anticipated usage from both national and university libraries and all parts of the serials' world.

PEPRS was initially funded as a two-year project to scope, design and build a prototype, during which user requirements were gathered from librarians and preservation agencies. The present funding, until July 2012, is geared towards implementation of a service-quality system.

The idea for the registry was mooted in various reports since 2003 and the findings of a JISC-commissioned report carried out by the University of Loughborough and Rightscom and published in 2008. Further background information on the project and details of relevant reports are available on the PEPRS project website at  http://edina.ac.uk/projects/peprs/index.html

The five archiving agencies that have been participating in the project and have made metadata available to the PEPRS Beta service are: British Library; CLOCKSS Archive; e-Depot at the Konjinklijke Bibliotheek; Global LOCKSS Network; Portico.

It is planned to extend the scope of the service by including metadata from other archiving agencies. Additional functionality will also be added to the service throughout 2011 - details of which are set out in the FAQ section.

A programme to test new functionality is being developed and the project team would welcome offers from users to assist in the testing process. If you would like to get involved please contact us at edina@ed.ac.uk.

Contact the EDINA HelpDesk at edina@ed.ac.uk
+44 (0)131 650 3302 (telephone)