Momentum for CLOCKSS Growing

["Amy Kohrman" <akohrman@stanford.edu>]

<Apologies for Cross-Posting>

Support for the community-governed archive cooperative, CLOCKSS 
(Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), continues to grow as 
they announce the addition of the University of Alberta as its 
newest governing library member.  The University of Alberta 
Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries 
and has the second largest academic and research collection in 
Canada.

The CLOCKSS initiative was created in response to the growing 
concern that digital content purchased by libraries may not 
always be available due to retirement of an electronic journal or 
catastrophic events.  CLOCKSS addresses this problem by creating 
a secure, multi-site archive of web-published content that can be 
tapped into as necessary to provide ongoing access to researchers 
worldwide for free.  "We are proud to welcome the University of 
Alberta as our first Canadian partner," says Gordon Tibbitts, CEO 
of bepress and Co-Chair of the CLOCKSS Board of Directors. 
"Adding another global partner to the network further solidifies 
CLOCKSS leadership in providing a cost-sensitive and effective 
long-term archiving solution that services the entire scholarly 
community."

Based at Stanford University, the not-for-profit organization is 
a partnership of libraries and publishers. As a governing 
library, the University of Alberta Libraries will operate one of 
the computer "CLOCKSS boxes" housed at (ultimately) 15 sites 
around the globe containing content contributed by publishers. 
This content is stored and preserved, ensuring that it is 
available for future use.  "The University of Alberta Libraries 
consider CLOCKSS essential for ensuring access to the knowledge 
we create today far into the future," stated Ernie Ingles, Chief 
Librarian and Vice Provost at the University of Alberta, "We feel 
that membership in this organization is a contribution to future 
generations."

CLOCKSS uses LOCKSS low cost archiving software to operate its 
archive, making participation in the collective affordable for 
libraries of all sizes. LOCKSS is an ACM award winning digital 
preservation technology preserves all formats and genres of 
web-published content including the look and feel of the 
original. LOCKSS is evolving open source software, which means 
there is less chance that the format of the stored content will 
become outdated and useless. When digital content becomes 
unavailable, for instance if a publisher chooses to retire a 
journal, then that "trigger event" allows content stored in the 
archive to be released to designated delivery platforms or hosts, 
ensuring unrestricted access to research literature that might 
otherwise have been lost.  Prior to a trigger event the content 
is "dark" or hidden and is not available to anyone.  Content that 
has been made available through CLOCKSS can be freely accessed on 
the CLOCKSS website at 
http://www.clockss.org/clockss/Triggered_Content.

CLOCKSS is a joint venture between the world's leading scholarly 
publishers and research libraries.  Its mission is to build a 
sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive with which 
to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly 
publications for the benefit of the greater global research 
community.  Governing Libraries include the Australian National 
University, Indiana University, New York Public Library, OCLC 
Online Computer Library Center, Rice University, Stanford 
University, the University of Alberta, the University of 
Edinburgh, the University of Hong Kong and the University of 
Virginia.  Governing Publishers include the American Medical 
Association, the American Physiological Society, bepress, 
Elsevier, IOP Publishing, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford 
University Press, SAGE Publications, Springer, Taylor & Francis 
and Wiley-Blackwell.

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Contact CLOCKSS: Amy Kohrman, akohrman@clockss.org +1-650-721-5838