Digital preservation is crucial to the “persistence” of persistent identifiers. Without a reliable archival solution, if a Crossref member ceases operations or there is a technical disaster, the identifier will no longer resolve. This is why the Crossref member terms insist that publishers make best efforts to ensure deposit in a reputable archive service. This means that, if there is a system failure, the DOI will continue to resolve and the content will remain accessible. This is how we protect the integrity of the scholarly record.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.crossref.org/blog/a-request-for-comment-automatic-digital-preservation-and-self-healing-dois
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I am commenting here as someone who runs open access journals using OJS with CrossRef DOIs.
I think this sounds like a good project. I would support the use of the Internet Archive for these purposes. This is partly reflecting on our use of the Public Knowledge Project’s digital preservation service. As I understand it, having a DOI resolve to an archive copy in that service wouldn’t get the user very far, as it is not an open service (for good reasons). It would be the equivalent of a reference to a document in a physical archive (less useful than that, in fact).
This did make me reflect that publishers like us might end having two digital preservation copies: one in their closed service and one in the CrossRef/Internet Archive service. Not a bad thing necessarily, but worth thinking about the implications.