PREVENTING THE EXTINCTION OF THE ANTARCTIC JOURNAL OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS PREDECESSORS: MAKING IT ACCESSIBLE INTO THE FUTURE

The Antarctic Journal of the United States was published by the U. S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (NSF-OPP) from 1966 through 2002. It was preceded by four other publications: the Antarctic Status Report, USNC-IGY; the Bulletin of the U.S. Antarctic Projects Officer; the Antarctic Status Report; and the Antarctic Report. The journal documented U.S. activities in Antarctica and related activities in other locations. It also tracked trends in the U. S. Antarctic Program and reported on Antarctic Treaty meetings. Regular entries included monthly climate data, announcements of awards made by the NSF, and information on scientific conferences related to Antarctica. Preliminary results of the U. S. national program in Antarctica were reported project-by-project. The Journal ceased publication in 2002 as more and more Antarctic research began to appear in the mainstream scientific literature and the data could be transitioned to web sites. In 2011, the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) digitized the older issues of the Antarctic Journal of the United States and its predecessors under a grant from NSF. The digitized issues were made available on the web site of the Cold Regions Bibliography Project and were interconnected with the Antarctic Bibliography. As the Bibliography platform became outdated, AGI has begun to transition the digitized publication to an open repository structure using Islandora and the Bibliography to a new interface employing VuFind to preserve long-term accessibility of the data and articles.