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UK Research Reserve

UK Research Reserve: a collaborative national collection of print journals

^{Joanna Ball - August 2010}

The Library is a member of the UK Research Reserve (UKRR), a collaborative, co-ordinated and sustainable approach to securing the long term retention, storage and access to low-use print journals. The British Library will protect important printed research materials by storing journals no longer required by libraries, retaining them in perpetuity and making them accessible to researchers and others who wish to consult them. Researchers will be able to receive 24-hour electronic delivery of research material not held in their library via the British Library.

Until now, lesser-used print journals have been risk of disposal as Higher Education libraries face space and cost pressures. Now, for the first time, the retention of an appropriate number of copies of print research journals will be co-ordinated by a national body.

Sussex is among 29 Higher Education libraries involved in the project, which began in July 2009. We have been selecting material for withdrawal over the last year, and will continue to do so for the duration of the project. The Library has invested heavily over the last few years in purchasing permanent access to a number of journal backfile archives, including Elsevier, Springer, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis. This has enabled us to identify a number of print titles for withdrawal, without losing access to any journal content. We have been able to save a significant amount of valuable shelf space, which can be repurposed for higher priority teaching and research uses. By working with UKRR, we can be confident that we are not withdrawing one of the last remaining copies of a journal in the UK.

The Library has already agreed to retain several journal runs as part of UKRR, including International Social Work and Infant Behaviour and Development. These titles will be kept as one of the last three remaining print copies in the UK, available for consultation by the UK research community. In addition, we have also been asked to fill gaps in the British Library’s collections with titles we had earmarked for withdrawal to enable them to fulfil requests for document supply more effectively.