K-Theory now available through Portico

The academic community lost access to the mathematics journal K-Theory on the SpringerLink platform when the editorial board resigned in 2007 and founded a new journal, Journal of K-Theory, published by Cambridge University Press.   Access to the original K-Theory content is now available through Portico.  There is an interesting back-story we wanted to share with CDLINFO News readers, illustrating the important role of libraries and stewardship organizations in preserving access to scholarly content.

Librarians questioned the loss of content of the original journal on various public email lists, noting that it was listed as being archived in Portico.  Portico had indeed archived the content, but it had not been “triggered” due to a dispute over ownership. CDL licensing staff became aware of the issue and petitioned both Springer and Portico to reinstate access, as did several other libraries.  Ivy Anderson, CDL’s Director of Collection Development and Management commented on the discussion forum LibLicense, “This is an object lesson in the vagaries of perpetual rights, the value of redundancy, and the role of the academy and trusted 3rd parties in ensuring long-term access to the scholarly literature.”  Portico subsequently stepped in and worked with all of the parties involved to ensure that the perpetual rights commitment would be fulfilled.

CDL is pleased to report that thanks to the advocacy of the library community, as well as Portico’s efforts, the UC community now has access to the K-Theory volumes from January 1987-January 2008 (vols. 1-38) via Portico: http://uclibs.org/PID/1752