Springer helps launch CLOCKSS archive

["Amy Kohrman" <akohrman@stanford.edu>]

*With apologies for cross-posting*

Agreement supports sustainable digital preservation for future 
generations of scientists

Springer Science+Business Media, publisher of one of the world's 
most comprehensive online collections of scientific, 
technological and medical journals, books and reference works, 
announces a partnership with the community-governed archive 
cooperative CLOCKSS to preserve Springer content in the CLOCKSS 
global archive.  Springer publishes over 1,700 journals and more 
than 5,500 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook 
collection worldwide. Springer is a founding member of CLOCKSS.

The CLOCKSS archive allows research libraries and scholarly 
publishers, who launched CLOCKSS as a pilot program, to preserve 
and store its electronic content.  Once ingested, the e-content 
is kept safe and secure in a dark archive until it is triggered 
and the CLOCKSS Board determines that the content should be 
copied from the archive and made freely available to all, 
regardless of prior subscription.  Due to the success of the 
pilot program, the founding members unanimously agreed to 
incorporate and invite others to participate in CLOCKSS.

Participating CLOCKSS libraries and publishers govern the archive 
themselves via three tiers of governance - an executive board, a 
board of directors, and an advisory council.  Research libraries 
working alongside publishers like Springer are able to help shape 
policy and practice in their communities.

"In a great show of confidence, Springer has joined the CLOCKSS 
initiatives, putting its complete trust in an archive they helped 
build," says Gordon Tibbitts, Co-Chair of CLOCKSS.  "Springer is 
helping to shoulder the responsibility, alongside its publishing 
peers and research library customers, of keeping their scholarly 
assets safe and protected for future generations of scholars."

"As a leading publisher in the STM sector, Springer continues to 
be innovative by fully supporting initiatives to preserve these 
digital assets and protect them for future generations," said 
Heather Ruland Staines, Global eProduct Manager SpringerLink and 
member of the CLOCKSS Board of Directors.  "Our library partners 
feel quite strongly that the decision by the CLOCKSS founders to 
make triggered content available to all for free will help 
further the work of researchers."

In addition to storing Springer's journal content with CLOCKSS, 
the publisher has submitted a proposal to the CLOCKSS Board 
outlining a pilot project to test the feasibility and legal 
issues surrounding preservation of ebook content.  Because ebook 
contracts differ from journal contracts, Springer can only 
deposit ebook files when its authors' rights are protected.

CLOCKSS (www.clockss.org) is a joint venture between the world's 
leading scholarly publishers and research libraries.  Its mission 
is to build a sustainable, geographically distributed dark 
archive with which to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based 
scholarly publications for the benefit of the greater global 
research community.  Governing Libraries include the Australian 
National University, EDINA at the University of Edinburgh, 
Indiana University, New York Public Library, OCLC Online Computer 
Library Center, Rice University, Stanford University, the 
University of Alberta, the University of Hong Kong and the 
University of Virginia.  Governing Publishers include the 
American Medical Association, the American Physiological Society, 
bepress, Elsevier, IOP Publishing, Nature Publishing Group, 
Oxford University Press, SAGE Publications, Springer, Taylor & 
Francis and Wiley-Blackwell.

Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) is one of the 
world's leading suppliers of scientific and specialist 
literature.  It is the second-largest publisher of journals in 
the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector, the largest 
publisher of STM books and the largest business-to-business 
publisher in the German-language area.  The group publishes over 
1,700 journals and more than 5,500 new books a year, as well as 
the largest STM eBook collection worldwide.  Springer has 
operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, 
and some 5,000 employees. In 2007, it generated annual sales of 
around EUR 906 million.

Contact Springer: Renate Bayaz, renate.bayaz@springer.com, 
+49-171-8668118

Contact CLOCKSS: Amy Kohrman, akohrman@clockss.org 
+1-650-721-5838

****