June 7, 2006
Contacts: Guy Lamolinara, Library of Congress (202) 707-9217; Andrew
Herkovic, Stanford University (650) 725-1877
Library of Congress Announces DIgital Preservation Award to Stanford
University
The Library of Congress has entered into a three-year cooperative
agreement with Stanford University to provide approximately $700,000 in
support of Stanford’s CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff
Safe) digital archive pilot and related technical projects. Funding is
being provided by the congressionally mandated National Digital
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).
“We are looking forward to working with Stanford on this important
collaboration,” said Laura E. Campbell, associate librarian for
Strategic Initiatives, who is leading NDIIPP. “By joining our other
NDIIPP digital preservation partners, Stanford is leveraging the
collective expertise in this important field of librarianship.”
The Library is leading the NDIIPP initiative
(www.digitalpreservation.gov), which is focused on the long-term
preservation of culturally important born-digital materials. A key
element of this program is the formation of a national network of
partners, like Stanford, to implement solutions and share responsibility
for preserving digital materials.
Since 1999, Stanford has been developing preservation software as part
of its LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program.
Web sites have become the version of record for many journals and other
types of publications that are no longer distributed in print.
Information stored on paper can survive for centuries; information
stored digitally today may not be recoverable next week. Libraries are
thus faced with the urgent problem of creating online collections that
are as well preserved as traditional hard copies. The reliable
preservation of digital materials is critical to the mission of
librarians who build collections and must ensure the future availability
of today’s intellectual, cultural and historical content.
The LOCKSS Program, initiated by Stanford University Libraries, is
open-source software that provides libraries with an easy and
inexpensive way to collect, store, preserve and provide access to their
own, local copy of authorized content. The CLOCKSS initiative
(http://www.lockss.org/clockss) is a collaborative, community initiative
to build a trusted, large-scale, dark archive. CLOCKSS is intended to
provide a decentralized and secure solution to long-term archiving,
based on the LOCKSS technical infrastructure. Its governance and
administration structure are distributed to ensure that no single
organization controls the archive or has the power to compromise the
content's long-term safety or integrity. Access to archived content will
be granted in response to a trigger event (for example, when content is
orphaned or abandoned by its owner or subject to long-term business
interruption), reviewed by a group of people working on behalf of the
broader community. Any content that is made accessible after a trigger
event will be made available to all.
As part of the NDIIPP cooperative agreement, Stanford will work with the
Library of Congress to explore the potential applicability of its
LOCKSS/ CLOCKSS technologies to a variety of initiatives and projects
that support the overall goals of NDIIPP. The Library award will be
matched dollar-for-dollar by Stanford.
BACKGROUND
*About the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation
Program*
In December 2000 Congress authorized the Library of Congress to develop
and execute a congressionally approved plan for a National Digital
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. A $99.8 million
congressional appropriation was made to establish the program. According
to Conference Report (H. Rept. 106-1033), “The overall plan should set
forth a strategy for the Library of Congress, in collaboration with
other federal and nonfederal entities, to identify a national network of
libraries and other organizations with responsibilities for collecting
digital materials that will provide access to and maintain those
materials. … In addition to developing this strategy, the plan shall set
forth, in concert with the Copyright Office, the policies, protocols and
strategies for the long-term preservation of such materials, including
the technological infrastructure required at the Library of Congress.”
The goal is to build a network of committed partners working through a
preservation architecture with defined roles and responsibilities.
The complete text of the “Plan for the National Digital Information
Infrastructure and Preservation Program” is available at
www.digitalpreservation.gov. This includes an explanation of how the
plan was developed, whom the Library worked with to develop the plan and
the key components of the digital
preservation infrastructure. The plan was approved by Congress in
December 2002.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Through its
National Digital Library (NDL) Program, it is also one of the leading
providers of noncommercial intellectual content on the Internet
(www.loc.gov). The NDL Program’s flagship American Memory project, in
collaboration with other institutions nationwide, makes freely available
more than 10.5 million American historical items.
*About the LOCKSS Program and Stanford Libraries*
The LOCKSS Program (www.lockss.org) is based at Stanford University
Libraries & Academic Information Resources (www-sul.stanford.edu). Over
the years, the program has received major funding from Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation and the National Science Foundation, as well as funding and
in-kind support from the United Kingdom’s Joint Information Systems
Committee, Sun Microsystems, HP Labs, Intel Research Berkeley and
Harvard University. The program is now largely funded by contributions
from the member libraries of the LOCKSS Alliance.
Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources is
dedicated to meeting the university's information needs in support of
teaching, learning and research; to the global dissemination of
scholarly information through publishing and online services; and to the
advancement of the art and science of library and information practices.
It is actively addressing the challenges of scholarly communication
and research libraries in the digital age, while continuing the
development and preservation of its extensive print, media and
manuscript collections.
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PR 06-129
06/07/06
ISSN 0731-3527
