Portico Announces It Has Reached a Milestone

In the past when print was the only form of publication, scholars would assume that the products of their work would live long lives on library shelves as books and journal articles. In today's publishing environment where electronic publications are proliferating, scholars may have serious doubts about the longevity of their work if they publish on the web. In an effort to address their concerns, several digital preservation projects have been developed in recent years. One of the most important is Portico. This means that the library's e-journals produced by publishers signed up with Portico will remain available to future researchers regardless of changes in technology. A recent announcement from Portico administrators provides some numbers that give an idea of how far Portico has progressed:

Portico is pleased to announce that 110 publishers, representing more than 2,000 professional and scholarly societies, are now participating in the Portico archive. Furthermore, nearly 15 million articles are now safely preserved in the Portico archive. "These are significant milestones for Portico and this substantial growth in a short period of time underscores the importance of digital preservation, and the commitment of the hundreds of Portico's participating libraries and publishers to ensuring long-term access to scholarly content," said Eileen Fenton, Portico's Managing Director.