Distributed Globally, Collected Locally: LOCKSS for Digital Government Information

Abstract

Introduction Ever since the Government Printing Office (GPO) brought GPO Access online in 1993 in order to make government information accessible on the Web, some librarians and others have dreamt of a system that would extend the mostly successful, 150 year old geographically distributed Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) model to the digital world. Today, thanks to the efforts of Carl Malamud, the Stanford-based Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) team, and 15 libraries around the country, a successful model for the digital FDLP has been launched. This paper will describe the LOCKSS model of digital preservation and why that model is beneficial to apply to the realm of digital government information. Next, we will illuminate Carl Malamud’s herculean efforts toward better access to government information. We will then discuss how we’ve built the USDocs Private LOCKSS Network (USDocsPLN) using those documents harvested by Malamud. The paper concludes with a call to action.