Independent digital archives
In 2002 Elsevier entered into an agreement with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands), which agreed to be a digital archive for all Elsevier journals. This archive is available now for onsite access and would be made generally available to the public on a remote basis should we (or a successor) no longer be providing access.
Then in 2005 Elsevier entered into an agreement with Portico, an independent not-for-profit organization maintaining dark digital archives. All ScienceDirect Elsevier journals and the eBook Collection are being deposited permanently with Portico, and all libraries can decide to join Portico and have assured access through Portico should access via the publisher no longer be possible. In addition, as noted above, Elsevier has authorized Portico to offer post-termination access in the event a library ceases to be a ScienceDirect subscriber.
Following a two-year beta test, in 2008 Elsevier also agreed to participate in CLOCKSS, a distributed publisher-library community archive system. This international program provides for 15 local library-held archives around the world. Elsevier plans to archive its journals, starting with the 2008 volumes.
Finally, since 1996 Elsevier has licensed its ScienceDirect service for local hosting (ScienceDirect OnSite) and there are approximately ten major library centers around the world that hold all or virtually all Elsevier titles locally. While these libraries are not official archives, their possession of the digital files provides significant reassurance that these files will not disappear or otherwise be inaccessible to the research community.
