Preservation Department
Digital Curation
Recent years have brought significant changes to the way libraries are providing access to scholarly resources. Specifically, libraries have been replacing subscriptions to the print versions of scholarly journals (or mixed subscriptions that provide access to both print and electronic copies) with electronic-only access to materials. This raises two important questions:
- What happens if subscriptions to these electronic resources are cancelled or they become otherwise unavailable?
- How can one ensure the long-term preservation and availability of such materials?
The NCSU Libraries is participating in two international, leading cooperative intitiatives - Portico and LOCKSS - that address these problems.
Portico
Portico was launched in 2002 by JSTOR, an online archive of academic journals and monographs, to facilitate the preservation of born-digital scholarly literature.
Unlike LOCKSS—which relies on storing files in multiple locations, i.e., its partner institutions—Portico centralizes the storage of the materials provided to it by the currently 72 participating publishers. In addition to the long-term preservation of journals of monographs, Portico provides access to titles should one of the following events, called "Trigger Events," occur:
- a publisher stops operations.
- a publisher ceases to publish a title or no longer offers back issues.
- a catastrophic and sustained failure of a publisher's delivery platform occurs.
Depending on the publisher, Portico can also provide post-cancellation access to back issues.
The NCSU Libraries is one of almost 500 institutions worldwide—approximately 330 in the U.S.—that participates in the program.
For more information see http://www.portico.org
LOCKSS
LOCKSS stands for "Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe" and was initiated in 1999 by Stanford University. The goal was to create a system that would allow libraries to preserve and provide access to local copies of authorized electronic resources.
Currently, LOCKSS consists of an international network of approximately 200 academic libraries, library services providers, and research organizations worldwide, with the majority of them being located in the U.S. Each of these institutions operates a LOCKSS Box—generally nothing more than a desktop computer—that regularly visits the websites of about 400 participating publishers and downloads the latest issues of their electronic journals.
In addition, the NCSU Libraries is part of a group of twelve U.S. academic libraries and the Library of Congress that form the U.S. Government Documents Private LOCKSS Network whose goal is the long-term preservation of important documents issued by the Federal Government.
To ensure that files are not damaged over time, LOCKSS Boxes regularly compare the files that are locally stored against the publishers' websites and other LOCKSS Boxes and replace them if necessary.
LOCKSS fulfills two important functions for the NCSU Libraries:
- It ensures the long-term preservation and accessibility of the original content:
- by continually comparing the locally-stored files to those on publishers' websites and other LOCKSS Boxes and, if necessary, replacing them, LOCKSS prevents the irreversible corruption of electronic resources.
- It continues to provide access to local copies of back issues if there is a temporary or permanent interruption of access to the publishers' original copies due to:
- unavailability of the publisher's website.
- the publisher ceasing operations or publication of a specific title.
- the Libraries cancelling subscriptions to titles stored in LOCKSS.
Currently, the NCSU Libraries is hosting approximately 560 GB of electronic journals and 100 GB of government documents.
For more information see http://www.lockss.org
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