Digital Archiving Policies of Central European Journals Registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals

Abstract:  This paper examines digital archiving policies of open access (OA) electronic scholarly journals in Central Europe. The research sample consists of 1589 journals from nine Central European countries registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Results show that of the 1589 journals, 69% of them have an archiving policy. In terms of the number of indexed journals, Poland ranks first with 592 journals. Switzerland is at the forefront of digital archiving with 89% of archived journals. It was also found that Portico and national libraries are the most widely used archives, and that 19% of the preserved journals are archived in more than one archive. A preliminary analysis was also conducted to investigate the possible existence of a relationship between journal rank and digital archiving. The results show a higher number of JCR indexed titles, as well as a higher ranking, among archived journals. The paper also compares the status of archiving policies among Asian and Central European countries. The results reveal that archived journals are significantly more represented in Central European countries.