Home » post » Happy 16th Birthday to the LOCKSS-USDOCS network!

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Free Government Information (FGI) is a place for initiating dialogue and building consensus among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information. FGI promotes free government information through collaboration, education, advocacy and research.

Happy 16th Birthday to the LOCKSS-USDOCS network!

Wow it’s hard to believe that the LOCKSS-USDOCS network of over 30 libraries has been up and running for 16 years! We can finally get our driver’s permit 🙂 LOCKSS-USDOCS harvests all of the content currently published on the Government Publishing Office (GPO)’s GOVINFO content management system and includes the most recently created collection of Congressionally Mandated reports.

If you and your library are interested in participating in this collaborative digital preservation project of the digital FDLP(!), please contact James R. Jacobs at jrjacobs AT Stanford DOT edu.

The USDocs Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) was launched in 2008 as a digital repository for the U.S. Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), a network of over 1,100 participating libraries across the United States. The FDLP has for over 200 years ensured the safeguarding of documents published by the U.S. Federal Government through the same “lots of copies keep stuff safe” principle that now drives LOCKSS digital preservation networks. FDLP libraries select a basic subset of federal reports and documents, with individual libraries providing a wide range of additional specialized services and collections…

…At the heart of the FDLP lies the idea that libraries across the United States are not just passive repositories but active stewards of these vital materials. They dedicate themselves to preserving content for the good of society and to safeguarding democracy. FDLP libraries are driven by a mission: to provide free public access to official information, thereby empowering citizens with knowledge and fostering transparency. As the FDLP becomes increasingly digital, the GPO will print and distribute a decreasing number of titles in hard copy to just a few libraries in each of the four National Collection Service Areas (NCSAs), and the USDocs PLN will be collecting and preserving a growing percentage of the U.S. Federal Government’s output.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


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