What happens to the articles published in an online-only journal when that journal not only ceases to publish, but ceases to exist? That question is raised by the case of Kant Studies Online, an online only, open-access philosophy journal that published articles between 2011 and 2016, the website of which is no longer accessible. The journal was founded by Gary Banham, who died in 2013. The journal published articles through 2016, according to PhilPapers. And while there appear to be versions of some of these articles at PhilArchives (available via their PhilPapers listings), that is not the case for all of them. Nor are the journal’s articles available through archived versions of the site at the Internet Archive. The disappearance of Kant Studies Online was brought to my attention by Jef Delvaux, who writes: I am concerned about the gap in the record of Kant scholarship, more broadly I am concerned that philosophers are not sufficiently aggressive in ensuring that their scholarship is preserved, especially when it is published in online venues. Arguably there is a role to play here for librarians. I thought that, perhaps, you could post a call addressing those who have authored pieces for Kant Studies Online to upload their papers and/or tables of contents to PhilPapers or the academic repository of the Internet Archive. That might be good advice for authors of articles in other online-only journals.

The post Kant Studies Online: No Longer Online first appeared on Daily Nous.