RECONSIDER BEFORE DISCARDING PRINT JOURNALS; AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ELSEVIER'S JOURNAL BACKFILES IMAGE RESCANNING PROJECT

During 2006-2009, Elsevier conducted a rescanning project to correct image problems in their digital journal backfile collections. The author examined 35 titles in the Earth and Planetary Sciences backfile package to evaluate the effectiveness of the rescanning project. The rescanning project corrected a substantial amount of image problems, however the years 1995-1998 were not included in the project, and therefore still contain many unacceptable images. In addition, the algorithm that was used did not identify problem line drawings such as maps, graphs, and charts, therefore a noticeable number of low quality line drawings remain throughout the Elsevier backfile collections.