Collecting & Preserving Content
The Library is working with a variety of partners to collect and preserve specific types of digital content that will be used by Congress, scholars, students and lifelong learners for generations to come.
In 2004, the Library of Congress made awards totaling nearly awards totaling nearly $14 million to eight lead institutions to establish the digital preservation network. Each institution formed additional collaborative relationships, and the network was launched with 36 initial partners. Over time, the network will grow to represent the full scope of libraries, archives and other repositories with long-term responsibilities for the collection and preservation of digital materials.
Other partners collecting important content are Portico, which is developing an archiving service for electronic journals; LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), which is a multi-site distributed archive of content. These distributed archives constantly communicate with each other by comparing content. If the digital content at one site is damaged, the damaged content is automatically repaired; SCOLA (Satellite Communications for Learning), which is saving high-interest foreign news broadcasts such as those from Al-Jazeera and from Pakistan, Russia and the Philippines so that they are available for future research.
The Library leads the network in its work to collect, preserve and make available important digital content. Collaboration is key: The network partners share expertise, tools and best practices in an organization that achieves substantially better results than the partners could individually.
