News & Events
Indiana University Libraries Partner in Archiving Project To Ensure Long-term Access to E-Journals
09/27/2002
Indiana University Libraries, with partners Stanford University
Libraries, Emory University, and the New York Public Library, will
implement a groundbreaking program to archive electronic journals
with the support of a $1 million grant to Stanford University from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Lead partner Stanford University recently developed the technology to archive electronic journals through a program known as LOCKSS, or “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.” The technology empowers academic libraries who subscribe to electronic journals to preserve low-cost, digital copies of e-journal content at their own libraries.
Invited by Stanford to develop software for this phase of the project, Indiana University will ensure the technology is useful for librarians who manage the electronic collections. “We are honored to be working with other respected institutions. Our participation also speaks highly of our abilities and leadership in this area,” says Suzanne Thorin, Ruth Lilly University Dean of University Libraries. “By implementing and helping to refine the LOCKSS technology, we will advance the university’s communal interests in seeking solutions to the thorny challenges involved in preserving scholarly communication in electronic format.”
Academic librarians, who seek to preserve access to the scholarly record for future generations, have been struggling with providing long-term access to Web-based journals for some time. Much of the information that libraries once owned in paper is now purchased or leased in the electronic format. A publisher’s demise or a library’s subscription cancellation, for example, can remove a researcher’s access to past electronic material with no recourse.
The LOCKSS technology, funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Sun Microsystems, enables libraries to store copies of electronic journals to which they subscribe. IU’s primary role in the project will be to create collection management software which will ensure librarians are able to audit easily the content that is being archived. In the implementation phase of the LOCKSS project, the IU Libraries will also identify journals edited by IU faculty and published or sponsored by the university to be among the first participants in this nationwide initiative.
LOCKSS is based on interlibrary cooperation, since no single library can create a critical number of preservation copies for any given e-journal title. The technology is intended to be common property of the academy and to be widely embraced by academic libraries around the world.
Indiana University Libraries participated in the early testing of the LOCKSS technology. Currently, a total of 56 libraries and 42 publishers worldwide, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the British Medical Association, are utilizing the LOCKSS system to protect materials published on the Internet. Libraries helping to test the LOCKSS system include the Library of Congress, the British Library, Harvard University, University of California Berkeley, Cambridge University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and National University of Singapore.
Lead partner Stanford University recently developed the technology to archive electronic journals through a program known as LOCKSS, or “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.” The technology empowers academic libraries who subscribe to electronic journals to preserve low-cost, digital copies of e-journal content at their own libraries.
Invited by Stanford to develop software for this phase of the project, Indiana University will ensure the technology is useful for librarians who manage the electronic collections. “We are honored to be working with other respected institutions. Our participation also speaks highly of our abilities and leadership in this area,” says Suzanne Thorin, Ruth Lilly University Dean of University Libraries. “By implementing and helping to refine the LOCKSS technology, we will advance the university’s communal interests in seeking solutions to the thorny challenges involved in preserving scholarly communication in electronic format.”
Academic librarians, who seek to preserve access to the scholarly record for future generations, have been struggling with providing long-term access to Web-based journals for some time. Much of the information that libraries once owned in paper is now purchased or leased in the electronic format. A publisher’s demise or a library’s subscription cancellation, for example, can remove a researcher’s access to past electronic material with no recourse.
The LOCKSS technology, funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Sun Microsystems, enables libraries to store copies of electronic journals to which they subscribe. IU’s primary role in the project will be to create collection management software which will ensure librarians are able to audit easily the content that is being archived. In the implementation phase of the LOCKSS project, the IU Libraries will also identify journals edited by IU faculty and published or sponsored by the university to be among the first participants in this nationwide initiative.
LOCKSS is based on interlibrary cooperation, since no single library can create a critical number of preservation copies for any given e-journal title. The technology is intended to be common property of the academy and to be widely embraced by academic libraries around the world.
Indiana University Libraries participated in the early testing of the LOCKSS technology. Currently, a total of 56 libraries and 42 publishers worldwide, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the British Medical Association, are utilizing the LOCKSS system to protect materials published on the Internet. Libraries helping to test the LOCKSS system include the Library of Congress, the British Library, Harvard University, University of California Berkeley, Cambridge University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and National University of Singapore.
