Archiving and Preservation

Institutions may download and save the materials to which they subscribe on a local domain Web server in order to provide online access to their local community. However, access to the files on the library's server must be restricted to authorized users, which include faculty, staff, students, alumni and library patrons of the subscribed institution. In addition, at the conclusion of each subscription year a subscribing institution may request at no charge an archival (non-searchable) file copy (provided on CD-ROM or an alternative medium at MUSE's discretion) containing all of the articles published online during that subscription year. Even if an electronic subscription to a journal is canceled, an institution may continue to store articles from the journals which were published online during the time the institution was a paid subscriber. Libraries, therefore, own the material from the electronic files to which they subscribe.

Further, Project MUSE is committed to providing permanent maintenance and preservation of all the digital files in the MUSE database. No journal content published online in MUSE will be removed or made inaccessible to current, paid subscribers. All MUSE partner publishers are contractually bound to allow any journal content published in MUSE to remain permanently in the database, even if they should choose to discontinue their relationship with MUSE.

Finally, Project MUSE is working with other providers to arrange storage of backup copies of all digital files at their sites to ensure future availability.