141st ARL Membership Meeting
Washington, DC

Concurrent Discussion Session
Thursday, October 17, 2002

Convener: Nancy Gwinn, Smithsonian Institution

Presenter: Vicky Reich, Stanford University

LOCKSS, Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe, is a project begun in 1999 at Stanford Libraries with funding from NSF and Sun Microsystems. LOCKSS is an Internet “appliance”, or “easy to use” software, designed to preserve access to authoritative versions of Web-published journals. LOCKSS uses the caching technology of the Web to collect pages of journals as they are published, allowing libraries to take physical custody of selected electronic titles they purchase. Unlike normal caches, however, pages in these caches are never flushed. Through alpha and beta testing phases, the LOCKSS system is demonstrating that it is both easy and affordable to operate a purchase model for Web journals. LOCKSS software is free and open-source and is designed to run on inexpensive hardware. Forty-three publishers have endorsed the LOCKSS beta test.

Mellon has funded LOCKSS as one of two alternative strategies for addressing the preservation of digital information. With the Mellon funding, LOCKSS will build production quality software to archive and preserve e-journals. In addition, LOCKSS has NSF funding to research issues that would allow the expansion of LOCKSS to accommodate other formats in addition to journals.

Potential Topics for Discussion:

How does LOCKSS differ from other alternatives for preserving digital information?

What are the budget and staffing implications of implementing LOCKSS?

What has been the response of publishers to LOCKSS?

What criteria might libraries use to determine if they should implement LOCKSS?