Digitization@METRO

CLOCKSS@METRO Recap

A VERY LARGE crowd (50+), by METRO standards anyway, attended yesterday's CLOCKSS@METRO event which was co-sponsored by our friends at the New York Public Library.

CLOCKSS or Controlled LOCKSS or Controlled Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (try saying that three times fast) is a not-for-profit community partnership among publishers and libraries that is developing a distributed, validated, comprehensive archive that preserves and ensures continuing access to electronic scholarly content.

It was a huge honor to have Victoria Reich, Director, LOCKSS Program, Stanford University Libraries, come all the way from California to explain CLOCKSS and LOCKSS to our members. If I had to choose one word to describe her presentation, it would be candid.

You can find a lot of information about CLOCKSS and LOCKSS on their website so I'm going to just add a couple of notes that I jotted down.

You could really tell that Vicky cherishes and values the role that libraries play in preservation. She noted how print libraries served as a great model of preservation and were both resistant to attacks and were self healing and that these two principles were carried over to LOCKSS and CLOCKSS.

Another thing that struck me was her comment about the unintended consequences of libraries which no longer build their collections but instead just rely on resources available on the internet. She equated those types of libraries to coffee shops with internet access.

The final thing I have in my notes is to remember to send Vicky the cat jumping photos. Done.

Thanks again to Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal from Stanford University for presenting, Barbara Taranto of NYPL for the idea and co-sponsoring, METRO's Deidre Hoguet for organizing, and all who attended.

Amazon Simple Storage Solution

It became apparent at last week's meeting of METRO's 2006 Digitization Grant Recipients that storage of digital collections is a major concern. One recipient reported that his institution's digital images are around 150 MB each, and that their digital collection is exceeding 1 TB. As someone jokingly stated, "that's a lot of cds."

I previously posted on the San Diego Supercomputer Center's new Data Central Data Allocation program, and today I want to call your attention to a data storage service called Amazon Simple Storage Solution (Amazon S3), as a possible alternative for backing up your digital collections.

Amazon states that this service will utilize the same data storage infrastructure that it uses to run its own business. The service is priced at $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used and $0.20 per GB of data transferred, with no minimum fees or usage. That sounds pretty cheap.

To read more about Amazon S3 click here.

CLOCKSS@METRO

Please join us on November 13th as the Metropolitan New York Library Council and The New York Public Library together host a presentation on CLOCKSS.

People with responsibility for scholarly assets agree that digital preservation is important. Tomorrow’s readers will need today's materials; without preservation they won't exist. While details about digital preservation processes are crucial, there are larger questions. Who over the long term will have control and custody of our scholarly heritage? CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) is a not-for-profit community partnership among publishers and libraries that is developing a distributed, validated, comprehensive archive that preserves and ensures continuing access to electronic scholarly content. Come hear what we're doing for you!

Presenters:

Victoria Reich, Director, LOCKSS Program, Stanford University Libraries
Barbara Taranto, Director, Digital Library Program, The New York Public Library

The founding members of CLOCKSS are:

Publishers: American Medical Association, American Chemical Society, American Physiological Society, Blackwell Publishing, Elsevier, Institute of Physics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, SAGE Publications, Springer, Taylor and Francis

Libraries: Indiana University, New York Public Library, OCLC, Rice University, Stanford University, University of Edinburgh, University of Virginia

What: CLOCKSS@METRO, an event co-hosted by METRO and The New York Public Library
When: November 13, 2006, 3:00-5:00 pm
Where: METRO, 57 East 11th Street, 4th Floor, NYC

A wine and cheese reception will follow the presentation

This event is free, but space is limited so you must RSVP. Please log on to METRO’s registration system at http://www.avilar.com/webmentor/campuses/metro/ to reserve your space.

METRO 2006 Digitization Survey

The METRO 2006 Digitization Survey Final Report is now available on our website.

The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) conducted its third digitization survey in the summer of 2006. The survey focused on measuring the growth of digital activity at METRO member institutions, and gathering the information needed to develop plans for further expansion of METRO’s digital services.

Funding for this survey was provided in part by Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds awarded to the New York State Library by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

To read the report please visit the Digitization Reports section of our website.

SDSC's Data Central

The Enterprise Storage Forum has an interesting story about the San Diego Supercomputer Center's  (SDSC) new Data Central Data Allocation program. In the last 20 years, SDSC has developed a massive storage infrastructure which they would now like to share with the "greater academic and digital preservation communities." Cost is expected to be around $1,500 per terabyte per year (around $1.50 per gigabyte) which will include 24/7 access, maintenance, and migration as needed. For the full story click here.