The Digital Distributed Community Archive

The Digital Distributed Community Archive, identified by its EIN as 26-3098051, is not directly associated with this name in available information. However, it appears there might be confusion with CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS), a global leader in digital preservation services, which shares similar goals and operates under the domain clockss.org.

Overview

CLOCKSS is a community-led collaboration between academic publishers and research libraries worldwide, aimed at preserving digital scholarship for future generations. It operates as a dark archive, meaning its content is not actively accessed unless a triggering event occurs, such as the content being orphaned by its publisher.

Operations and Technology

CLOCKSS uses the award-winning LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system developed at Stanford University. This technology ensures the long-term preservation of scholarly content across 12 strategically located servers at leading academic libraries in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Each server hosts a complete copy of the archive, providing redundancy against environmental and political risks.

Content and Access

The archive includes over 58.7 million journal articles and 538,000 books. Content is selected and quality-assured by reputable academic publishers and research libraries. When content is triggered, it is made available under Creative Commons Open Access licenses to ensure widespread and free access.

Governance and Participation

CLOCKSS is a financially secure, independent non-profit organization governed by a board composed of equal numbers of library and publisher representatives. It collaborates with over 300 supporting libraries and 626 participating publishers, forming a collaborative community that mitigates risks to scholarly content while reducing costs for all parties involved.