This presentation was given by Craig Van Dyck of CLOCKSS during the Joint NISO-NFAIS Virtual Conference held on December 7, 2016

1. Long-term Preservation of
Digital Scholarly Literature
Craig Van Dyck
NISO-NFAIS Virtual Conference: Making Certain Digital Content is Preserved
7 December 2016

2. Why Preservation Matters
•End users
•Libraries
•Publishers
•Grant funders
•Research institutes
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4. Stakeholders
• Scholars rely on permanent access to digital materials
• The scholarly literature is long-lived
• Libraries as the stewards of preservation
• Libraries may not own copies of the digital literature
• Publisher-provided access can be unstable
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5. Stakeholders, cont’d
• Funders want the output from their funding to remain
available
• Research institutes need their faculty to have access to
materials; and need to be sure that their faculty’s output will
be accessible
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6. How CLOCKSS Works
• Introduction
• Technology; LOCKSS
• Processes
• Governance
• Statistics
• Triggers
• Challenges
• Priorities
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7. CLOCKSS: Controlled LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)
• Began operations in 2006
• Ensuring long-term access to scholarly literature for
researchers
• A diverse, robust ecosystem of digital preservation solutions
• CLOCKSS preserves and archives on behalf of libraries
• Libraries have insisted that publishers archive their content
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8. CLOCKSS -- Technology
• CLOCKSS uses the open source LOCKSS technology, with 12
library server nodes:
NA: Indiana, OCLC, Rice, Stanford, Virginia, Alberta
Europe: Edinburgh, Humboldt/Germany, Universita Cattolica / Italy
APac: Hong Kong U, NII/Japan, Australia National U
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9. CLOCKSS – Technology, cont’d
• CLOCKSS is certified as a Trusted Digital Repository by the
Center for Research Libraries
• TRAC audit perfect score for technology; see David Rosenthal
blog:
http://blog.dshr.org/2014/07/trac-certification-of-clockss-
archive.html
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10. A word about LOCKSS
• From the Stanford University Library
• Unique technology solution: multiple servers constantly
cross-checking each other, ensuring the preserved data is
valid
• Many instances:
Global LOCKSS Network 150 nodes, each with their own collection;
post cancellation access
14 Private LOCKSS Networks e.g. CLOCKSS, Public Knowledge
Project, Canadian Government Information, CARINIANA (Brazil),
ADPN, US government documents
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11. CLOCKSS -- Processes
• Content submission via file transfer or web harvest:
https://www.clockss.org/clocksswiki/files/File_Transfer_Guidelines_
-_CLOCKSS.pdf
https://www.clockss.org/clocksswiki/files/Web_Harvest_Guidelines
_-_CLOCKSS.pdf
• Web harvest is particularly useful with “long tail” publishers
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12. CLOCKSS -- Governance
• CLOCKSS is a “dark” archive
• Triggered content is made available as open access
• What does “trigger” mean?
- When digital content ceases to be available to end users
- Access must be ensured, to support scholarship
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13. CLOCKSS – Governance, cont’d
• Community governance: equal number of libraries and
publishers on the Board of Directors
• Funded by publisher fees and voluntary library contributions
• Free-standing 501(c)(3) non-profit
• Financially stable
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14. CLOCKSS -- Statistics
• 200 publisher participants, 750 library supporters
• 15 million journal articles and books, adding ~4 million/year
• 5 largest publishers = 70% of the content
• “long tail” publishers = 65% of the publishers
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15. CLOCKSS – Triggering Content for Access
• Rigorous rules and practices
• Bylaws require 75% Board vote in favor, with no more than 2
voting against a trigger
• 29 triggered journals; 1 million downloads this year
• Triggered journals are open access via CLOCKSS, at Stanford
and Edinburgh
• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works License
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16. Challenges: Two Asks
1. Preserving the “Long Tail”:
- Long tail journals are the most at-risk, and the hardest to find and
work with
- We need libraries’ priorities for what to archive that is not yet
archived
2. Financial support for a diverse and robust digital
preservation environment
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17. CLOCKSS – 2017 Priorities
• Investing in hardware and software: capacity, timeliness
• Adding more large backfiles
• New content types e.g. data sets, video, databases
• Stronger transparency
• Increased outreach
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18. CLOCKSS, concluded
CLOCKSS holdings are publicly reported in the Keepers
Registry: https://thekeepers.org/
https://clockss.org
cvandyck@clockss.org
973-600-7397
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