Preservation

Our readings for the "Preservation/Perpetual access" week introduced a few key organizations when it comes to preservation, including LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, and Portico. While I think LOCKSS is very useful, and CLOCKSS useful under very specific circumstances, I was really interested in the Portico model because the membership model seems like a good fit for libraries that do not have the resources (in staff, money, or time) to implement a "LOCKSS box." This is obviously a more centralized system than LOCKSS, but it might be the best method for smaller institutions. It will be interesting to see what happens with Portico and if their membership model takes off. It might be difficult for them to raise funding through membership fees, but it does seem like a worthy system.

These preservation readings came the same week that I presented on etextbooks. It occurred to me that I was not aware of any model that would preserve ebooks. Our readings discuss these preservation organizations in terms of ejournal content. As it turns out, Portico is introducing new preservation services, including preserving ebooks, starting Jan. 1, 2011. This is great news for libraries that are concerned about their econtent. We are not just working with ejournals--we have these ebooks, etextbooks, datasets, images...the list goes on and on. Each different format could require different preservation strategies, and at the very least, will require working with a larger pool of content suppliers. Librarians had to (and continue to) fight to get perpetual access issues implemented into licenses for full-text databases. They will necessarily have to be ready to negotiate those issues for ebooks, too. Having a centralized system to point to, like Portico, might make publishers more comfortable and make everyone rest a bit more easily.