OCLC joins LOCKSS Alliance

[Victoria Reich <vreich@stanford.edu>]

OCLC joins LOCKSS Alliance

*DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 22 June 2006: OCLC has joined more than 90 
libraries from around the world that participate in the LOCKSS 
(Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Alliance, a library membership 
consortium and active user community that provides open-source 
archiving software as a means to build digital collections.

OCLC joins LOCKSS in support of its collaborative effort to 
explore new uses of the LOCKSS technology to benefit the 
community and to build new capabilities for digital preservation. 
OCLC will work collaboratively with LOCKSS to explore the 
expansion of the LOCKSS technology to operate with different 
types of digital content.

"OCLC is proud to join the LOCKSS Alliance," said Phyllis Spies, 
OCLC Vice President of Collection Management Services. "The 
distributed technical infrastructure and community governance of 
LOCKSS enables libraries to take custody of and preserve cultural 
and social assets for future generations. LOCKSS is of growing 
interest to OCLC members worldwide as they chart a course in 
collection development of digital resources."

"This is a particularly appropriate time for enrollment in the 
LOCKSS Alliance given the recent coming together of OCLC and RLG, 
two organizations that have dedicated much work to digital 
preservation," Ms. Spies continued. "We look forward to exploring 
this shared model for sustainability of digital assets."

Members of the LOCKSS Alliance are interested in participating in 
the development and expansion of applications and services. 
Additionally, the Alliance community will help determine 
long-term priorities and strategies for digital preservation 
software and program evolution.

"OCLC's participation demonstrates and solidifies the 
sustainability of the LOCKSS Alliance model for a community-based 
archival solution," said Victoria Reich, Director of the LOCKSS 
Program, Stanford University Libraries. "By accepting this 
leadership role, OCLC will foster broader adoption of LOCKSS so 
librarians can cost-effectively build collections and retain 
their libraries' essential role as social memory organizations."

LOCKSS' open-source software provides librarians a 
low-maintenance mechanism for collecting, storing and long-term 
access to a library's own local copy of authorized content. 
LOCKSS "boxes" at 157 institutions in more than 20 countries 
comprise a peer-to-peer system that automatically cross-checks 
content to ensure the accuracy and completeness of all member 
archives. Eighty publishers are now participating in LOCKSS or 
actively preparing to add their journals to the program.

Founded and based at the Stanford University Libraries, the 
LOCKSS Program is funded mainly by contributions from the member 
libraries of the LOCKSS Alliance. It has received major funding 
in the past from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National 
Science Foundation.

For more information about LOCKSS, visit
<http://www.lockss.org/lockss/Home>.

*About OCLC
*Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer
Library Center is a nonprofit organization that has provided
computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent and
preservation services to 54,000 libraries in 109 countries and
territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and
maintain WorldCat, the world's richest online resource for finding
library materials. For more information, visit
<http://www.oclc.org>.

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