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As most people probably know, the journal "K-theory" used to be published by Springer, but was discontinued after the editorial board resigned around 2007. The editors (or many of them) started the new "Journal of K-theory" in collaboration with Cambridge University Press.

Maybe I'm being very stupid or missing something obvious, but I am quite sure that articles from "K-theory" used to be available online via Springer, and as far as I can see they are no longer there. Did I miss something here, or did they just disappear? I can't believe Springer would do that, but then I can't find anything by searching, and the article links from MathSciNet are dead:

Sorry, the page you requested is unavailable. The link you requested might be broken, or no longer exist. SpringerLink is providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from Journals, Books, Protocols and Reference works.

In case it helps, here is the journal ISSN: 0920-3036 (print version) 1573-0514 (electronic version).

Grateful for any clarification.

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    $\begingroup$ This was asked in chat: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/10191947#10191947 $\endgroup$
    – JRN
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 2:43
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    $\begingroup$ “I can't believe Springer would do that”—unfortunately, that is how the world currently works. :( $\endgroup$
    – The User
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 14:52
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    $\begingroup$ I asked Springer a week ago, they said they would come back to me shortly. $\endgroup$
    – Andreas Holmstrom
    Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 22:17
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    $\begingroup$ Almost all issues of K-Theory (I guess till year 2006 or 2007) are available on torrents: rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=352673 (I guess one should register there to be able to download). $\endgroup$
    – Pasha Zusmanovich
    Commented Dec 22, 2013 at 12:48
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    $\begingroup$ @AndreasHolmstrom Did Springer come back to you shortly? $\endgroup$
    – Dmitri Zaitsev
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:04

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It seems that the archives have been taken down because of "legal issues related to the ownership of the content." See http://publishing.mathforge.org/discussion/169/clockss-and-portico/#Item_18 for further discussion. Unfortunately, nobody involved seems to be publicly discussing the situation, and I have not yet been able to learn exactly what's going on. One natural guess is that this has something to do with how the journal ended, but I really don't know. In any case, it's outrageous for a journal to disappear, and the community deserves to know why it has happened and what can be done about it.

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    $\begingroup$ The very next post in that discussion links to this statement by Wolfgang Lück from 2007, which mentions a lawsuit between Anthony Bak and Springer, which is also the reason Scott Morrison named in chat $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 10:29
  • $\begingroup$ Any solution found to the "legal issues" or any information at all available anywhere? Specifically why Springer still does not show any information at all? That publishing forum is defunct, unfortunately. $\endgroup$
    – Dmitri Zaitsev
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:11
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I was the only editor of the old "K-theory" who did not join the editorial board of the "Journal of K-theory". A decision I have never regretted. On the other hand, I do regret that it is no longer possible to access the old K-theory papers online. I do not believe the fault is with Springer. I urge all authors to make their papers available online. If you would like to read a K-theory paper and it is not already online, please ask the author to make it available online.

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    $\begingroup$ Christian Kassel points out that he was another editor of the old "K-theory" who did not join the editorial board of the "Journal of K-theory", although he did not make public his reasons. The saga continues: the "Journal of K-theory" has now spawned the "Annals of K-theory", justifying my comparison of the launch of the "Journal of K-theory" in Belfast in 2007 with the Belfast launch in 1911 of the Titanic. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew Ranicki
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 5:58
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    $\begingroup$ It is quite disappointing that Springer search still returns no information at all about the journal, as if it had never existed: link.springer.com/… $\endgroup$
    – Dmitri Zaitsev
    Commented Nov 26, 2017 at 13:21
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Thanks to a librarian's listserv here an update: Since recently K-Theory is now available through Portico (only available to members) - see http://www.portico.org/digital-preservation/news-events/news/general-news/portico-now-provides-access-to-k-theory-content But no news if there are any plans to change the situation at the Springer website...

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It's been a few years, but given that the Journal of K-Theory has also closed, here is a one-stop shop so that people can see where they might access the content of both journals, and which issues:

Subscriptions seem to be required to at least some of the preservation services, but at least it's better than nothing.

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    $\begingroup$ And if you're wondering what the former editors of those journals are up to with all their free time now, check out the comparatively new journal Annals of K-theory. $\endgroup$
    – Tim Campion
    Commented Apr 24, 2021 at 20:07
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To keep people updated, there are behind-the-scenes efforts to get K-theory available from a non-subscription journal archiving service (EDIT: this one, which releases its material under a CC-BY-NC-ND license). Unfortunately this is progressing slowly. I have no firm date when this could be a reality, but one hope was to see progress by the middle of the year (though I'm not confident).

PS If one is particularly persistent and know the right people, I believe there is a complete collection of K-Theory articles out there "on the internet".

EDIT2: Given the recent developments between the Journal of K-theory editorial board and Bak, I'm a whole lot less hopeful that issues regarding K-theory will be sorted out anytime soon.

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I don't have a grasp of the ins and outs of things here, but as of 2021 it seems most of the links in the above answers are broken. Currently it appears that archives of the journal "K-Theory" are available here through Portico. "Journal of K-Theory" doesn't appear to be available through Portico: here's what you get if you just search Portico for journals called "K-Theory".

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    $\begingroup$ As the listing suggests, the short-lived Journal of K-theory is avaiblable through Cambridge University Press: cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-k-theory To understand what happened to the journals "K-theory" and "Journal of K-theory" there is so much you can find online. One of the texts I like most is this blogpost: math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7188 $\endgroup$
    – Jens Reinhold
    Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 6:57
  • $\begingroup$ Also linked to in the comments above is the summary of events by the editors of "Journal of K-Theory" when they resigned, available here. Basically, the editors of "K-Theory" (Springer) resigned around 2007 to start the "open-access" "Journal of K-Theory" (Cambridge U Press), but there were problems with the owner and managing editor of "Journal of K-Theory", Anthony Bak, causing all editors except him to resign in 2014, and found instead "Annals of K-Theory" (Mathematical Sciences Press), which seems to be truly open-access. $\endgroup$
    – Tim Campion
    Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 13:07

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