Use LOCKSS

The LOCKSS Program can help you build or integrate digital preservation solutions.

Communities and organizations are encouraged to make use of the freely-available open-source LOCKSS software for their digital preservation needs. The LOCKSS Program maintains the LOCKSS software for the benefit of the LOCKSS Alliance as well as the larger community of LOCKSS users, and offers additional fee-based services. Please contact us for additional information about these services, including pricing.

Setup and support of preservation networks

The LOCKSS Program can work with communities and organizations to set up preservation networks based on LOCKSS technologies. This includes not just technical setup but consulting on administration, candidate content, community and organization, finances, policies, staffing, and technology. Once the network is operational, the LOCKSS Program can provide ongoing technical support.

Software development to support content ingest

A growing library of plugins for parsing the content and metadata made available by a variety of source platforms, according to a variety of packaging standards, is available for use by the LOCKSS community. The LOCKSS Program can develop plugins for source platforms and packaging standards that are not yet supported.

Preservation network infrastructure hosting

Preservation networks are more resilient when they store more copies of content. The LOCKSS Program recommends at least four copies to achieve a minimal level of resilience. In a typical configuration, LOCKSS networks also depend on a configuration server for specification of the plugins and source content to be ingested. The LOCKSS Program can host copies of content and the configuration server.

Engineering to support component integration

LOCKSS technologies — such as the harvester framework, metadata extraction capabilities, and the Library Content Audit Protocol (LCAP) — now have specified web service interfaces as standalone components. The LOCKSS Program can provide engineering support to enable the integration of LOCKSS technologies and functionality into other systems.