LOCKSS is a project from Stanford that has built an open system for archiving digital collections, especially e-journals by caching lots of copies. Besides a great name, they have an idea that is timely as governments look for ways to archive digital data without creating huge new units. It seems to me we need some variants on this that are aimed less at a library model and more for individual peer-to-peer archiving for artists/writers. (See the specs for the Beacon idea at grockwel: Research Notes: Freenet Project.)
A quote from the brief description:
The LOCKSS model capitalizes on the traditional roles of libraries and publishers. LOCKSS creates low-cost, persistent digital “caches” of authoritative versions of http-delivered content. The LOCKSS software enables institutions to locally collect, store, preserve, and archive authorized content thus safeguarding their community’s access to that content. The LOCKSS model enforces the publisher’s access control systems and, for many publishers, does no harm to their business models.
Willinski’s PKP project uses LOCKSS, by the way.
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