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By Andrew Herkovic

The LOCKSS Alliance announced today that it has 50 academic library members in the United States.

Begun in 1998 as a collaboration between librarians and software engineers, LOCKSS (for "Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe") aims to assure continuing access to important, expensive and at-risk digital content, such as articles in scientific journals, for libraries. Developed largely with grant funds, LOCKSS is open-source software that provides librarians with a way to collect, store, preserve and provide access to their own, local copy of authorized content they purchase.

In late 2004 the LOCKSS Alliance, a membership organization dedicated to the support and growth of the LOCKSS system, was announced. Projects are under way to use the system to preserve a wide variety of materials (scholarly electronic journals, government documents, electronic theses and dissertations, and special and archival materials).

"The idea of LOCKSS is to be of, by, and for the library community," Stanford University Librarian Mike Keller said. "It is extremely gratifying to us that the library community has responded so affirmatively in supporting the LOCKSS Alliance."

LOCKSS is an initiative of the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources.

Andrew Herkovic is communications director for the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources.

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