Ensure your scholarly-record is future proof — in this post learn what preservation means for various stakeholders and join us to learn about the PKP Preservation Network in a free webinar on May 20th, 8 AM PDT. Promotion of this event started during Preservation Week. Update May 23: this post now includes the webinar recording and slide deck, plus a call to action to contribute.
Preservation of the scholarly record is more than publishing in multiple places, having DOIs, indexing, and using repositories. While still important, these approaches can all break in the face of technological obsolescence and organizational change. Using preservation services like PKP’s Preservation Network (PKP PN) for those using Open Journal Systems (OJS) ensures long-term access, integrity, and usability of academic research through secure, sustainable archiving practices.
Who should care about preservation and why?
Journal Editors and Publishers
Those responsible for publishing are ultimately responsible for long-term preservation. That is, they should ensure that their content remains accessible, usable, and citable over time. Not only does this practice reflect commitment to authors, readers, and research communities, but many funders, institutions, and indexing services require journals to have preservation policies. Using PKP PN ensures that journal content remains accessible, citable, and secure — even if a journal ceases operations.
Researchers and Authors
Valuable time and resources go into scholarly outputs. When these outputs are missing from the scholarly record, other researchers and authors will not be aware of their existence, making for duplication of efforts and wasted resources. Further, if an article has been cited and then disappears, it creates a gap whereby researchers cannot follow citation chains. Like journals and publishers, those producing the outputs want to ensure their work is preserved, discoverable, and citable in the long-term. Publishing with journals that use PKP PN protects the visibility and permanence of these outputs.
Academic Libraries and Librarians
Libraries are stewards of scholarly resources and often manage journal hosting, archiving, and digital infrastructure. Digital preservation is part of library missions, and using services like PKP PN aids in compliance with archival standards. Further, this practice demonstrates alignment with open scholarship and growing institutional mandates.
University Administrators and Research Managers
It’s not only publishers, authors, and Librarians who care about long-term preservation. Folks within administration and management are concerned with research “impact” (in its various evolving forms), integrity, and infrastructure investment. PKP PN is a sustainable, community-led solution that supports institutional goals for scholarly communication — including open access as a global public good. That is, long-term preservation ensures that open access outputs today are still available tomorrow, and decades from now.
Technical and Platform Support Teams
Whether journals using OJS are hosted by PKP, university libraries, learned societies and the like, PKP PN offers technical ease. Automation, LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe)-based reliability, and integration with OJS are just some of the benefits of using PKP PN. In other words, PKP PN is a pragmatic, risk-reducing, mission-aligned solution. It safeguards content without adding complexity or cost, while enhancing the resilience and trustworthiness of the scholarly publishing infrastructure they maintain.
Get an overview of PKP PN
Ready to explore PKP PN? Whether you are already using OJS, or considering it, these resources are for you.
📌 Overview, end-user access, preservation agreement, PKP PN Plugin, preservation nodes, advisory panel, PKP PN joining criteria, terms, and Project JASPER
📌 Examples of restored journals
Get the latest — join our webinar! “Free, Easy, Essential: Future-Proof your Scholarly Record with the PKP Preservation Network”
📅 Tuesday May 20th, 8 – 9 AM PDT; 9 – 10 AM MDT; 10 – 11 AM CDT; 11 – 12 EDT
✨ Speakers: Mark Jordan, Associate Dean of Libraries, Digital Strategy, Simon Fraser University, and Mariya Maistrovskaya, PKP Senior Publishing Support Specialist
🎟️ Registration: Free via Eventbrite
🌐 Venue: Online via Zoom
This event will be recorded and shared with the public. The hosts will disable microphones and video screens, and there will be opportunities for questions and comments.
Use of Eventbrite to register is voluntary. Eventbrite data is stored on U.S. servers. If you prefer, you can email commpkp[at]sfu.ca to register – subject line: Preservation event registration.
🔎 Abstract
This webinar introduces the Public Knowledge Project Preservation Network (PKP PN), a free, open-source digital preservation service designed specifically for journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS).
Attendees will learn how the PKP PN safeguards the scholarly record through a distributed, decentralized preservation network, ensuring that published scholarship remains accessible for the long term, even in the face of technical failure or organizational change.
A live demonstration will walk participants through the journal registration process using the PKP PN plugin and showcase restored journals. Through these case studies, we’ll highlight PKP’s ongoing commitment to building sustainable, community-driven infrastructure that supports the resilience and reliability of academic publishing.
Thank you for considering joining us. If you prefer to send questions or comments to PKP in an alternative format during or after the event, please contact PKP.
Even if you can’t make it to the event, but you are still interested, register anyway and you will get a recording of this event.
Update: Webinar recording and slide deck now available
Access this recording on YouTube to get transcripts and captions.
Webinar chapter links
- 00:00 Introduction
- 01:30 Introduction to speakers
- 01:55 Outline
- 02:31 Why digital preservation is important
- 09:59 Preservation versus backups
- 19:51 About PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN)
- 25:00 How to use PKP PN and check preservation status
- 32:31 Examples of preserved journals
- 34:30 Other complementary services
- 38:35 PKP PN resources
- 39:00 Get involved
- 39:39 Question and answer period
Be sure to check out the question answer section to learn about preserving open peer review, monitoring content via LOCKSS, PKP PN deposit size limit, distributed nature, and getting involved.
How you can contribute
Are you interested in contributing to the preservation of scholarly records via PKP PN?
Please consider these routes to contribution:
- Ask and answer questions about the PKP PN in the PKP Community Forum
- Express your institution’s interest in hosting a PKP PN node by contacting PKP
- Consider using PKP’s hosting services — all revenue goes back into PKP infrastructure
- Spread awareness of long-term preservation importance and PKP PN by sharing this post with your networks, and across social media with the hashtag #PKPPN
Thank you for your interest and dedication to future-proofing the scholarly record!
