CRL recently released several enhancements to the Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR), a database of archived titles and holdings. These infrastructure and interface enhancements will expand functionality and improve user experience for collection managers seeking actionable information for local decision-making on retained serial holdings.
Highlights of the recent improvements include:
- Improved infrastructure to accommodate more serials data from trusted digital repositories.
While PAPR has incorporated digital holdings from CLOCKSS and Portico (both certified as trustworthy digital repositories by CRL), the underlying database infrastructure made it difficult to ingest records from additional digital repositories recommended by the community. New scripts allow users to designate holdings format as part of the ingest process, allowing the community to add digital holdings from organizations and initiatives such as JSTOR, HathiTrust, and Scholar’s Portal.
- Differentiation between print and digital holdings of registered titles.
Title results now show holdings of print and electronic representations clustered together under one entry, with visual icons distinguishing format. Detailed results will group holdings information by print, digital and other formats as applicable (see example).
- Ability to display retention commitments at the program level as well as institutional commitments.
Responding to community desires, PAPR holdings now include the capacity to show retention commitments at the program level (e.g., FLARE) as well as by the committing institutions. This also allows for showing titles/holdings retained under multiple commitments (e.g., Scholars Trust and FLARE) (see example).
CRL’s technical and systems staff conducted an analysis of PAPR’s current data model as part of its recent NEH-sponsored initiative to test the identification and incorporation of serials information related to microform and digital surrogates. The enhancements recommended by the technical assessment were made to PAPR with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of a collaborative CRL and OCLC effort to improve the infrastructure for shared print serials management.
Further enhancements are in the works and will be introduced as they are tested.
