1. Denise Koufogiannakis Chair, Steering Committee
Cooperative Digital Preservation of Western Canadian Content: COPPUL’s Private LOCKSS Network
Thank you, and Good morning, everyone.
In the next 15 minutes I will introduce you to the COPPUL Private LOCKSS Network, a cooperative digital preservation initiative which uses the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) technology developed at Stanford University. This, I believe, is an effective, practical, and affordable approach to digital preservation.
Denise Koufogiannakis
Chair, Steering Committee

2. Mission
“to preserve digital collections of local interest to COPPUL members that are not being preserved elsewhere”
Quite simply, the mission of the COPPUL PLN is…
The COPPUL PLN is unique in Canada and one of only 8 PLNs worldwide. The focus is on digital content that holds significance for Western Canada, to ensure that this material will be preserved for future generations.
COPPUL member institutions have formed an alliance with a technology that has proven to be effective (LOCKSS) and are collaborating to ensure that digital content of high significance to Western Canada is preserved. This project enables librarians and libraries to be involved as cultural stewards, with decisions about the future of content that is of importance to our region. It gives us control over how the content is managed and preserves this content that is so vital to our heritage for future generations.

3. Participating Members
University of British Columbia
Simon Fraser University
Athabasca University
University of Alberta
University of Calgary
University of Saskatchewan
University of Manitoba
University of Victoria
University of Winnipeg
These are the 9 COPPUL institutions that are participating in the initiative.

4. Private LOCKSS Network distribution
You can see that we are geographically distributed across Western Canada; a distance of about 2500km from Winnipeg to Victoria. This geographic distribution is important as part of a long term preservation strategy.

5. History 2006 COPPUL collections meeting Task group recommendations
2 year pilot approved by directors for
Sept 2009 – directors approved a continuation of the initiative, establishing the PLN on a permanent basis
All pilot members agreed to continue their participation, and one new member joined, brining our total to 9 institutions
Just a brief history –
-- in the fall of 2006 the COPPUL collections group started thinking about digital preservation and what we could do collaboratively
-- a task group was formed and made recommendations to the COPPUL directors who approved a 2 year pilot over the 2008 and 2009 calendar years, with 8 institutions participating. It was during this two year period that we made all major decisions about how the PLN would function, and determined whether it would be an appropriate preservation solution for COPPUL.
-- We determined our pilot to be a success, and in Sept 2009 the directors approved a continuation of the initiative, establishing the PLN on a permanent basis. All pilot members continued, and one new member joined, bringing our total to 9 institutions.

6. A Cooperative Preservation Solution
LOCKSS is a cooperative preservation solution and I’d like to briefly illustrate how it works, using an example that is near & dear to me as an academic. I edit this journal, Evidence Based Library & Information Practice. It is an open access journal that uses OJS software and it is published and hosted by Learning Services at the University of Alberta.

7. A Cooperative Preservation Solution
The journal’s content is now being preserved by the COPPUL PLN. So, as an editor, I can rest assured that the scholarly output contained within our journal will be around for a long time.
As is illustrated here, the servers from each institution individually go out and gather content from the journal at the U of A. (I’ve only included 4 servers here, but we have all 9 doing this as part of the COPPUL PLN).

8. A Cooperative Preservation Solution
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Those servers (or LOCKSS boxes as they are known), check against one another to ensure the integrity of the data they have collected. If one box has corrupted data, it is flagged as being a problem.
This is a peer-to-peer technological structure, which is robust against failures--
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9. A Cooperative Preservation Solution
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If any box in the network fails, the others can take over. The other boxes then feed correct data to the corrupt box so that it can restore an authoritative version. These checks on integrity happen continuously.

10. Access to Preserved Material
Original Source
Library
Proxy
User
LOCKSS can also be used to provide access when material goes down.
So, normally, our users come through the library proxy and we connect them to the original source for the material. If something happens and this original source is not available, and the connection is broken, the library can instead direct users to the preserved copy via our LOCKSS boxes.
LOCKSS box

11. Collections Policy
Collections must be of local interest and significance to the member institution putting the collection forward.
Collections must be of greater than usual risk of being lost if not preserved by LOCKSS (they are not preserved elsewhere). Local backup is not sufficient for mitigating risk to the collection.
Collections should be “open” to all members, or all members must subscribe to the product being considered.
Titles subscribed to via large commercial packages should be excluded from consideration.
But what content do we preserve through this distributed, collaborative network?
During the pilot phase, the Implementation Committee created collection guidelines, noted here, to guide our way forward in terms of content we would preserve.
May 2008

12. Content focus OJS CONTENTdm DSpace Born digital theses
Other digitized collections
To meet our common needs and server space limits, we decided to focus on common platforms to begin.

13. Content Preserved
Over the past year and a half, we have added a good deal of content that is now actively being preserved in the PLN. This includes…
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (Athabasca)
Canadian Journal of Communication (SFU)
Canadian Journal of Sociology (UofA)
SFU Library Editorial Cartoons Collection (SFU) - cartoons
Grande Prairie Historical Photos Collection (UofC) - photos
Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UofSask) – theses
We feel confident that LOCKSS can handle multiple formats of digital materials, housed on a variety of different platforms.

14. A Low Cost Preservation Solution
Summary of costs for each participating institution:
Annual LOCKSS Alliance Membership fee
Current maximum = US$10,800
Equipment
$500-$1500 per LOCKSS network depending upon server configuration
In-house staff time
E.g. identifying, preparing, and submitting relevant collections; technical setup; representation on COPPUL PLN committees
LOCKSS is a low-cost preservation solution.
Explain elements of cost.

15. Issues Technical considerations Scalability Governance
There are three big overarching issues that anyone setting up a PLN needs to consider include:
Technical considerations – type of hardware to use, how to configure setup, plugin development, access issues/configuration of proxy servers to allow access if the regular host site goes down, etc.
Scalability – how you grow, space requirements, enabling all institutions to move forward but not overwhelming smaller institutions, etc. We currently have set 2TB as the amount of server space each institution should have on the LOCKSS box, but this will need to increase as we add more content.
Governance – how you manage issues operationally and come to agreements. Things such as what membership model you will use, content selection and scope, roles of members/representation, etc. We created a governance document to ensure all members were on the same page.

16. Future directions for the COPPUL PLN
Adding more content
Managing growth
Including content from COPPUL members that are not PLN members
Working collaboratively with other PLNs
Adapting to change
The COPPUL PLN is now well established and has already worked through many issues around governance and technical setup. Our key focus in moving ahead will be on adding more content….(plugins, common platforms, etc).
(Discuss others on list…)

17. Thank you!