A thriving international community of digital preservation services built around LOCKSS open-source software – Digital Preservation Coalition

“LOCKSS stands for “Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe”. Many people in the international digital preservation community will recognize this as the name of the open source preservation software developed at Stanford University Library.

But did you know that LOCKSS is also shorthand for a community of varied distributed preservation services all operating on LOCKSS software? Sometimes called Private LOCKSS Networks or PLNs, these preservation services are: the Alabama Digital Preservation Network (ADPNet), Cariniana in Brazil, CLOCKSS, the MetaArchive Cooperative, the Michigan Digital Preservation Network (MDPN), the SAFE Archive Federation serving 7 universities in Europe and Canada, the US Digital Federal Depository Library Program which preserves government documents published on the US govinfo site (USDOCS), the CGI Preservation Network in Canada, Perma.cc, the Public Knowledge Project Preservation Network (PKP PN), and COPPUL’s WestVault. And just to make things a bit more confusing, it is also shorthand for the Global LOCKSS network which provides digital preservation services and a mechanism for building local collections of web-based scholarly open access publications in a wide array of academic libraries.

The general model is the same for each service in this community of preservation: multiple geographically distributed preservation nodes run the LOCKSS software, each uses a crawler to obtain a copy of the target content for preservation, then these are stored on servers participating in the LOCKSS polling and voting protocol to establish consensus on the authenticity and integrity of that content. When one of these servers detects damage to its preserved copy, it fetches repairs from the original source or from a proven peer.  

What varies greatly from one PLN to another are governance and policy matters: the users of the preservation network, the content that is in scope, who operates the service, who has access to the preserved content and under what circumstances, who provides financial backing for various kinds of costs, what services beyond preservation are provided (e.g. bibliographic metadata, usage reports, etc.)…”

How open access diamond journals comply with industry standards exemplified by Plan S technical requirements

Purpose:
This study investigated how well current open access (OA) diamond journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and a survey conform to Plan S requirements, including licenses, peer review, author copyright, unique article identifiers, digital archiving, and machine-readable licenses.
Method:
Data obtained from DOAJ journals and surveyed journals from mid-June to mid-July 2020 were analyzed for a variety of Plan S requirements. The results were presented using descriptive statistics.
Results:
Out of 1,465 journals that answered, 1,137 (77.0%) reported compliance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles. The peer review types used by OA diamond journals were double-blind (6,339), blind (2,070), peer review (not otherwise specified, 1,879), open peer review (42), and editorial review (118) out of 10,449 DOAJ journals. An author copyright retention policy was adopted by 5,090 out of 10,448 OA diamond journals (48.7%) in DOAJ. Of the unique article identifiers, 5,702 (54.6%) were digital object identifiers, 58 (0.6%) were handles, and 14 (0.1%) were uniform resource names, while 4,675 (44.7%) used none. Out of 1,619 surveyed journals, the archiving solutions were national libraries (n=170, 10.5%), Portico (n=67, 4.1%), PubMed Central (n=15, 0.9%), PKP PN (n=91, 5.6%), LOCKSS (n=136, 8.4%), CLOCKSS (n=87, 5.4%), the National Computing Center for Higher Education (n=6, 0.3%), others (n=69, 4.3%), no policy (n=855, 52.8%), and no reply (n=123, 7.6%). Article-level metadata deposition was done by 8,145 out of 10,449 OA diamond journals (78.0%) in DOAJ.
Conclusion:
OA diamond journals’ compliance with industry standards exemplified by the Plan S technical requirements was insufficient, except for the peer review type.

LOCKSS Community Manager | Stanford University Careers

The LOCKSS Program makes the award-winning LOCKSS distributed digital preservation software platform, used worldwide by hundreds of libraries in dozens of countries to preserve and provide authoritative access to digital content, including scholarly communications, Web archives, and institutional repositories. It also operates digital preservation networks like the Global LOCKSS Network (GLN), delivers digital preservation services to organizations like the CLOCKSS Archive, and supports other digital preservation initiatives, all powered by the LOCKSS software. It is an internationally recognized part of the Stanford University Libraries (SUL) portfolio, having a major programmatic impact on the operations of memory organizations globally.

Position summary:

The LOCKSS Program seeks a Community Manager to foster partnerships and serve as a thought leader in the digital preservation sphere. You will become a familiar external face in three of the LOCKSS Program’s key constituencies: libraries and memory organizations, scholarly publishers and content providers, and open source software developers. You will play a pivotal role in facilitating business and technical conversations between LOCKSS Program staff and existing or prospective stakeholders, to apply LOCKSS technologies toward establishing new digital preservation initiatives. Are you a creative communicator, enthusiastic about digital preservation and passionate about access to information? Join our dedicated team and help the scholarly community meet its digital preservation needs with the LOCKSS Program.

In this role, you will:

 

Pursue partnerships with libraries and publishers, but also state and national agencies, scholarly content providers, and other memory institutions, to form digital preservation initiatives using LOCKSS technologies.
Ensure continuity of institutional and interpersonal contact with existing and prospective partners.
Organize community outreach events to promote the LOCKSS Program and foster engagement, such as webinars, trainings and unconferences.
Develop informational and instructional materials for the LOCKSS Program’s Web site and documentation portal, and to aid in conducting technical and business conversations with partners.
Track, participate and help advance long term digital preservation both individually and through organizing and applying technical and community efforts

 

To be successful in this role, you will bring:

Bachelor’s degree and five years relevant experience, or a combination of education and relevant experience.
Experience in the areas of digital preservation, Web archiving, or digital libraries.
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, including the ability to bridge functional and technical resources by communicating effectively with individuals of varying systems expertise and business needs.
Knowledge of principles and techniques used in conducting management studies and in systems analysis.
Skill in conducting interviews and facilitating group meetings.
Skill in developing and conducting training programs.

In addition, preferred requirements include:

Experience with managing products or programs.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Knowledge of various marketing elements (e.g. pricing, audience, channels, communication).
Demonstrated ability to understand the target audience life cycle and ability to convert leads into new business.
Excellent written and oral communication skills.

Why Stanford is for you:

Stanford University has revolutionized the way we live and enrich the world. Supporting this mission is our diverse and dedicated 17,000 staff. We seek talent driven to impact the future of our legacy. Our culture and unique perks empower you with:

Freedom to grow. We offer career development programs, tuition reimbursement, or audit a course. Join a TedTalk, film screening, or listen to a renowned author or global leader speak.
A caring culture. We provide superb retirement plans, generous time-off, and family care resources.
A healthier you. Climb our rock wall, or choose from hundreds of health or fitness classes at our world-class exercise facilities. We also provide excellent health care benefits.
Discovery and fun. Stroll through historic sculptures, trails, and museums.
Enviable resources. Enjoy free commuter programs, ridesharing incentives, discounts and more.

LOCKSS Operations Manager | Stanford University Careers

This position is posted at level 2 and 3.

 

School/unit description:

 

The LOCKSS Program makes the award-winning LOCKSS distributed digital preservation software platform, used worldwide by libraries to preserve and provide authoritative access to digital content, including scholarly communications, Web archives, and institutional repositories. It also operates digital preservation networks like the Global LOCKSS Network (GLN), delivers digital preservation services to organizations like the CLOCKSS Archive, and supports other digital preservation initiatives, all powered by the LOCKSS software. It is an internationally recognized part of the Stanford University Libraries (SUL) portfolio, having a major programmatic impact on the operations of memory organizations globally.

 

Position summary:

 

The LOCKSS Program seeks an Operations Manager to oversee delivery of digital preservation services in the Global LOCKSS Network (GLN), CLOCKSS Archive, and other LOCKSS-based digital preservation networks. You will be responsible for the LOCKSS Program’s portfolio of content processing pipelines, coordinating tasks incumbent on the LOCKSS Applied Preservation Services (APS) team, communicating with publishers and publishing platforms, and reporting to the LOCKSS Program Manager as well as CLOCKSS Archive leadership. Are you organized, an excellent communicator, and passionate about digital preservation and access to information? Join our dedicated team and become the LOCKSS Program’s familiar face among the scholarly publishers and publishing platforms who are the LOCKSS Program’s partners.

 

In this role, you will:

 

Develop a thorough understanding of LOCKSS content processing operations, to run them with efficiency and provide excellent digital preservation services to the LOCKSS Program’s partners.
Serve as a responsive technical point of contact for inquiries from publishers, the CLOCKSS Archive, and other stakeholders in the GLN and other digital preservation networks.
Collaborate with the LOCKSS team and partners to determine deliverables, create project plans, track current and pending processing and development work, and drive it to completion.
Translate partner business needs into actionable internal tasks, and conversely, translate internal business needs into actionable partner requirements.
Identify and champion opportunities for process improvement through workflow adjustments and technical investment.

To be successful in this role, you will bring:

 

Bachelor’s degree and eight years relevant experience, or a combination of education and relevant experience.
Experience in the areas of digital preservation, Web archiving, or digital libraries, or demonstrated ability to pick up skills in areas like these quickly.
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, including the ability to bridge functional and technical resources by communicating effectively with individuals of varying systems expertise and business needs.

 

In addition, preferred requirements include:

 

Experience with project management and typical support ticketing and task management and tracking systems.
Familiarity with scholarly communications, content publishing platforms, bibliographic metadata formats, and/or digital repository systems.

Open Access Preservation Options | LOCKSS

Every day, open access publishers contact the LOCKSS Program requesting preservation services.  Publisher participation in the Global LOCKSS Network preservation is free and thus is an attractive archiving option for small organizations. Unfortunately, at the moment, we are accepting very few open access publishers into the Global LOCKSS Network

The Global LOCKSS Network accepts for preservation content of interest to most of our participating libraries. Librarians prioritize expending preservation resources to ensure post-cancellation access to “toll walled” content.  They presume open access content “will be always there”. It’s a conundrum; the expensive subscription content whose preservation is in most demand is exactly the content at the lowest risk of disappearing.

In view of these realities, we recommend each nation or region assume responsibility for preserving locally-published open access content. Brazil’s CARINIANA Program is a successful example of this approach.

Other LOCKSS preservation options  for publishers to consider include….”

Save Tonight (and Fight the Rot of Bits): Open Access and Digital Preservation – Scholarly Communication in Raiderland

“I am writing to you about digital preservation, but this is a scholarly communication blog. So, let’s delve into what preservation has to do with open access. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) defines open access as ‘the free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with the rights to uses these articles fully in the digital environment.‘ The simple answer to what digital preservation has to do with access is that we are not only advocating for open access in the here and now but also for continued access in years to come.

In the traditional sense of open access, I will encourage you to pay attention to what open access publishers say about what they intend to do with the work that you submit to them. LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) are examples of programs designed to provide publishers with digital preservation tools and networks to ensure the safety of their content. If you are submitting your articles to a publisher who is openly involved with LOCKSS or CLOCKSS, then you can be reasonably assured that they have your best preservation interests at heart. But they’re not the only tools available to publishers, so be a good investigator when you explore your publication possibilities.

This introduction is the first part of two posts about digital preservation and access. Look out for the next post with four simple rules for incorporating digital preservation into your personal research routine.”