LOCKSS and Portico

Patrick Newell, CSU Fresno, says LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) started at Stanford 10 years ago. It’s international, with many supporters. It’s open source, peer-to-peer, decentralized. It began with a question about how the internet changed the role of libraries from building, owning collections to leasing materials. Libraries are social and cultural. Print libraries have preservation built in. Multiple copies are scattered around the world, held under different legal and administrative regimes. That changed with the web. Users get stuff that libraries don’t hold. He notes that, during hurricane season, some of his users couldn’t access materials held at libraries in the hurricane zone. This means that our digital cultural and intellectual heritage is at risk. The goal of LOCKSS was to keep digital preservation inexpensive, have local copy of what you bought. There’s a YouTube video on configuring a LOCKSS box. Now it’s more explanation of how LOCKSS works. Content preserved by libraries LOCKSS becomes part of their collection. Even if they drop out of LOCKSS, they still own the materials.

 

Ken DiFiore, outreach librarian at Portico, is explaining how Portico fits into digital preservation. It’s a not for profit, it’s an archive, it’s an insurance policy for libraries. Libraries make annual archive support payment to help defray cast of long term preservation. Portico provides trusted, third party archive of electronic scholarly content and robust preservation service to protect content from technological obsolescence, fading human memory, and media deterioration. Libraries from 13 countries participate. He gives some short case studies about participating libraries.

 

Any type of library can participate, even corporate.