Succession Plan: CLOCKSS Formalizes Long-Standing Commitments From Four Leading Universities to Ensure Perpetual Preservation

From a CLOCKSS Announcement:

Four of CLOCKSS’s twelve library nodes have agreed to continue to preserve the digital content that is preserved in CLOCKSS, if the organization were to cease to exist. In that unlikely event, Stanford Libraries (U.S.), Humboldt University (Germany), the University of Edinburgh (U.K.), and the University of Alberta Libraries (Canada) would take over the responsibility and the organization for running the LOCKSS software across the CLOCKSS content, to continue preservation for the future.
“The plan provides for continuity should CLOCKSS cease to be able to fulfill its commitments. If such a time comes it is likely to be a period of much wider uncertainty and significant change, and so the commitments from these four leading and long-standing successor organizations provide a strong foundation to ensure ongoing digital preservation,” said CLOCKSS Executive Director
Craig Van Dyck. He added, “The plan is the outcome of CLOCKSS’s ongoing collaboration between librarians and publishers — a dialogue that continues to examine how best to address the community’s needs.”

The CLOCKSS Board – including twelve leading academic libraries and twelve leading academic publishers – has enthusiastically endorsed this plan, which also has a broader community of support among its 260 participating publishers and 300 supporting libraries.
“Stanford and the other successor libraries consider long-term planning essential for a digital preservation service,” noted Mimi Calter, Deputy University Librarian at Stanford University, and co-chair of the CLOCKSS Board of Directors. “CLOCKSS is unique among preservation organizations in announcing this proactive step, which will ensure that the scholarly record will be preserved in perpetuity, and in its community-led governance.”
The CLOCKSS Succession Plan is part of its Trusted Repository Audit Checklist (TRAC) certification by the Center for Research Libraries.

Read the Complete Announcement
See Also: List of CLOCKSS Twelve Archive Nodes
See Also: List of All Supporting Libraries
See Also: List of Participating Publishers

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Digital Preservation, Libraries, News, Open Access, Preservation