Use of the Internet Archive to Preserve the Constituency of Journal Editorial Boards

Abstract

Knowledge pertaining to scholarly publishing is not limited to information held within academic papers, and within a complex publishing environment that is in constant flux due to challenges and threats, there is interest in knowing how journals are adjusting to these parameters. The Internet Archive is a free and easy way to archive information that is found on websites. We recently argued for its use in the archival of website-based citations, and expand those arguments herein to focus on the importance to archive journal editorial boards, for three reasons: first, journals might not have any formal mechanisms to register changes in the editorial constitution of the board; second, there is historical importance in appreciating changes to editorial board constituency, including changes to gender representation; and third, changes might be made opaquely to hide or masquerade information that is intricately linked to the historical aspect of that journal. Our interest is thus not only within a historical prism, but also from a bibliometric point of view, given that the editorial board defines—to some extent—the journal’s content by serving as its gatekeepers of quality. We attempted to archive the editorial board pages of 46 journal editorial board URLs, achieving 100% mementos.