Dear Colleagues,

The CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) Board would like to take this
opportunity to apprise you of our progress, to share early lessons, and
to encourage you to participate in the process of building this shared
resource.

The CLOCKSS participants (major academic publishers, research libraries,
and the Stanford University team) are building a community-governed,
stable, digital archive for published scholarly content. CLOCKSS access
is unbundled from fees: after a “trigger” event (when a publisher is no
longer able to provide electronic access to some or all of its archived
material), content will be freely available to all. Many libraries have
moved away from building and preserving collections, and there is
increasing interest in community stewardship and preservation of, and
guaranteed long-term access to, scholarly publications.

Since its inception early in 2006, the CLOCKSS members made significant
strides towards the effective management of archived materials, and
learned some important lessons. We are also extremely proud to have been
awarded the ALA ALCTS 2007 Outstanding Collaboration Citation, which
will be formally presented at ALA’s annual meeting in Washington in June.

To find out more about our early lessons and progress, go to
www.clockss.org and click on the link “CLOCKSS Lessons.”

As always, we welcome comments and suggestions. Please let us hear from you.

Sincerely,

Vicky Reich
Stanford University
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