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[edit] Answers for Librarians
[edit] The Need
"Libraries have a central role in society as cultural and educational institutions, and as agents for promoting literacy. [They are] essential for better international understanding, and as such they are a fundamental precondition for peace, human rights, literacy, intellectual freedom, and a better environment for all peoples." (IFLA-1991)
Libraries serve communities, including nations by:
- Collecting documents as cultural artifacts, including all genres, formats, media;
- Providing intellectual access through interpretation and organization;
- Preserving artifacts for future community members.
In short, a library is a MEMORY organization.
The web and other emerging technologies are having a disruptive effect on libraries. Libraries now lease subscription materials and are also able to access free materials. But they are increasingly unable to own collections and fill their memory role.
This begs the question: do libraries have a future? A set of links is not a library. Without local collections, libraries will be reduced to digital concierges, linking to common digital objects, resulting in a reduction in diversity of available content. To address this, librarians must assert their societal memory role by selecting, building, preserving, and providing access to locally owned digital collections.
Digital publications increasingly are the version of record, and often represent the sole version of record. They change rapidly or disappear, with no warning. They have adjuncts - e.g., hyperlinks, virtual models. Failure to collect digital artifacts will create a growing "dark age" of our times.
[edit] Expanding on a Traditional Role
In a traditional paper-based library system, libraries act for their institution to acquire copies of important "stuff," keep copies on shelves, and give access to local readers. Libraries cooperate to exchanges copies for purposes of repair and replacement. Readers can easily find copies. "Bad guys" have trouble finding and destroying all copies. Libraries ensure content persists simply by supporting their local communities. The result: a cooperative, affordable, decentralized, preservation system with LOTS OF COPIES.
A LOCKSS library system functions in much the same way. Libraries still act for their institution to acquire copies of important "stuff." Instead of using paper, they keep copies in LOCKSS boxes, which cooperate with each other to detect and repair damage. They give access to local readers, and they make it difficult for bad guys to find and destroy all copies. Again, librarians, through LOCKSS, ensure content persists simply by supporting their local communities. The result: a cooperative, affordable, decentralized preservation system with LOTS OF COPIES, but this time, in digital format.
[edit] Why Use LOCKSS
Librarians are chartered with preserving access to the scholarly record for future generations. Their communities clearly want e-journals. However, there is a problem: content that libraries previously owned in paper has shifted to a rental model in the electronic version. A unilateral change of policy by the publisher or failure to renew a subscription can result in loss of electronic access to past material, with no recourse. To date there has been no mechanism to apply the traditional purchase-and-own library model to electronic materials. Librarians have lost the option to build and maintain local collections.
The LOCKSS model restores the ability to build local collections of electronic journals. The system allows librarians at each institution to take custody of and preserve access to the e-journals to which they subscribe, restoring the purchase model with which librarians are familiar. Using their own computers and network connections, librarians can obtain, preserve and provide access to a purchased copy of an e-journal. This is analogous to libraries' use their own buildings, shelves and staff, to obtain, preserve and provide access to paper journals.
Material stored in a local LOCKSS Box remains available to members of the library's local community even when the publisher goes away (due to merger, bankruptcy, subscription cancellation, network traffic, etc.). The content is never dark; it is always available to the local community. Installing and populating LOCKSS Boxes are actions librarians can take for themselves to serve their local community. LOCKSS must be affordable even to libraries with a limited budget, and thus the LOCKSS Program has emphasized utilizing affordable hardware and appliance-like software.
The benefits of restoring the traditional ownership of library materials and local control over collection choices outweigh the costs of maintaining the system and related equipment. We believe the costs of collection management will also prove to be affordable.
