The Keepers Registry

What is The Keepers Registry?

The Keepers Registry is a service to provide easily accessible information about inclusion of journals in preservation services and highlight those e-journals for which no arrangements exist. View our 'About' page for more background information.

What is the relationship between The Keepers Registry and PEPRS?

PEPRS is the name of the JISC funded project, Piloting an E-journals Preservation Registry Service. This project commenced in August 2008 and is currently being funded until July 2012. In April 2011 the PEPRS Beta service was launched and this service has now been replaced by The Keepers Registry. Work will continue in the PEPRS project and appropriate developments will be implemented in the Keepers Registry beta service.

Why has an apostrophe not been included in the name, The Keepers Registry?

This is a registry of the keepers of e-journal content; it is not owned by the organisations that act as keepers. Some among us wished this facility therefore to be called The Keepers' Registry, and others in our number thought that incorrect. In this Beta release we have erred on the side of simplicity, and omitted the apostrophe ('). We await the outcome of any debate.

What is the release status of The Keepers Registry?

The Keepers Registry has been made available as a Beta service. We are working towards a stable release, but in the near term will undertake an iterative cycle of development, testing and feedback.

What functionality do you plan to add to The Keepers Registry?

Please see our Roadmap describing planned developments. The order of implementation will be determined in response to user priorities. Advance notification will be given of forthcoming functionality.

Is The Keepers Registry free?

Yes, The Keepers Registry is a free service providing everyone with accessible information on preservation arrangements.

Do I need to register to use The Keepers Registry?

The Keepers Registry does not require any registration or user account setup.

How does The Keepers Registry work?

EDINA and the ISSN International Centre jointly are responsible for the The Keepers Registry.

The ISSN Register provides a central spine of bibliographic information. Metadata describing the extent of each journal title preserved is supplied to EDINA by participating agencies and is normalized upon arrival. The Keepers Registry requires each metadata record supplied by an agency to have an ISSN associated with it, and for each record The Keepers Registry then takes advantage of the ISSN-L to map the agency metadata record to the bibliographic information in the appropriate ISSN Register entry.

What information does The Keepers Registry hold?

The Keepers Registry is concerned with the preservation of serials in one or more archiving initiatives. We define a serial as those things that have periodic publication, have a well-formed ISSN known to the ISSN register, and have full-text article content.

The Keepers Registry operates at the volume level, which is well understood by librarians as a discrete unit of content. The Keepers Registry does not operate at the article level and so DOIs cannot be resolved.

How do you ensure the quality of the data held on The Keepers Registry?

The Keepers Registry is an aggregation of data supplied by external organizations, and as such relies on the accuracy of data submitted. The Keepers Registry validates ISSN upon arrival, and excludes records where ISSN inconsistencies are found. The Keepers Registry attempts to report inconsistencies back to the archiving agency or the ISSN-IC, and it is the responsibility of these organizations to make corrections.

If you identify an error in the data held on The Keepers Registry, please contact us with details.

How up to date is the information on The Keepers Registry?

The frequency that The Keepers Registry will be updated is yet to be finalised but we anticipate updating the data holdings in The Keepers Registry on a monthly basis. This will be finalised depending on how often an agency makes changes to their journal information, and how often this information can either be collected from publicly available holdings or delivered directly to The Keepers Registry.

To check when an agency's data was last updated view the information on the participating archiving agencies page.

How can I access the information held on The Keepers Registry?

View our help pages for detailed information on using The Keepers Registry.

Can I send you some feedback on The Keepers Registry?

Yes, we appreciate all feedback on the The Keepers Registry service. Please use our feedback form.

In particular we are looking for feedback on the usability of the interface, additional functionality of interest, and any problems encountered during operation.

If you do encounter a problem, please contact us with a description of the issue, specifying the relevant ISSN(s) and journal title(s).

Does The Keepers Registry have a glossary of terminology?

Yes, our glossary is maintained in the help pages.

What pre-requisites do you require to participate in The Keepers Registry?

The Keepers Registry has made agreements with well-known archiving agencies. The Keepers Registry is formalizing the process and requirements to allow other agencies to register. If you are interested in participating, please contact us.

What benefits are there for my agency in participating?

The Keepers Registry will undertake analysis of your data upon submission and report any inconsistencies found, such as incorrect ISSN, or syntactic errors in volume-level descriptions. By having the records from your agency in the Keepers Registry the work of your agency will be publicised throughout the world.

How do I request a record be removed from The Keepers Registry?

Please contact us with a description of the problem, specifying the relevant ISSN(s) and journal title(s).