How OA archiving helps publishers

Edgar Crook, For the Record: Assessing the Impact of Archiving on the Archived, RLG DigiNews, August 15, 2006. Excerpt:

PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive at the National Library of Australia (NLA), has been archiving Web-based publications for 10 years, in conjunction with participants at the Australian State Libraries and other cultural organisations....

Many studies and articles examining archival practice and policy have emanated from PANDORA. None, however, has attempted to gauge the effect of archiving on the archived—that is the publishers and their publications....

The results of the study show that PANDORA archiving has thus far not had a detrimental effect on publications, and is in fact mostly benign and in some cases beneficial. It is to be hoped that the knowledge that Internet archiving does not necessitate any conflict between archivists and publishers will assist in guiding future negotiations.

Here are some results read off the charts in the article: 37% of surveyed publishers said PANDORA archiving changed the public perception of their publication for the better, and less than 1% said for the worse. (Most said it caused no change.) 96% said that overall it has been positive for their publication. 92% said it increased the number of hits to their online publication. 29% said it increased their publication's citation rate. (Most said it caused no change.) 11% said it increased revenue from their web site, while only 1% said it decreased revenue.