The first regular roundup from the UK LOCKSS Alliance support service is now available. Regular communication was requested at November’s Steering Committee meeting and was a clear requirement from a recent review of membership.
The intention of this roundup is to highlight ongoing system and content development, and to keep members informed of the activities of EDINA and other UKLA members.
If you have comments, queries, or suggestions for future content please contact edina@ed.ac.uk.
Access this feature of your LOCKSS box through the Title List link in the user interface.
LOCKSS Title List
A feature that we have been working on during the past year is the ability to export metadata about content holdings available or configured within LOCKSS. This has a variety of uses:
The default output is in KBART format; a set of recommendations for presenting title metadata in a way that is suitable for importing into knowledge bases. The same data can also be customised and exported in CSV format, or displayed on-screen as HTML. This feature can be accessed from the Title List link in the user interface. The output and the customisability have undergone some improvements since the initial release, providing increased accuracy and output that can be tailored to your needs.
LOCKSS Title List - KBART Listing
The Title List functionality is one of several enhancements that have been made over the last year to support access to content and metadata. The Title List code uses functionality in the new Metadata Manager, a behind the scenes module which extracts metadata from collected content and will help with OpenURL resolution. Work completed at Stanford over the summer means there has been a significant improvement in the completeness of metadata available about the titles preserved in LOCKSS – in particular, many titles had missing or erroneous ISSNs, which have now been filled in with help from the ISSN International Centre. Additionally, much missing volume and year data has been added.
The Title List module increases the reporting capabilities of LOCKSS, and is also an important step in integrating link resolvers, a process that is well under way and nearing completion.
To learn about other recent developments to the LOCKSS software, please see the Daemon Release Notes. If you’d like us to write a blog post to explain any recent activity and development in more detail, please contact edina@ed.ac.uk.
The LOCKSS team have been working to integrate LOCKSS with link resolvers (read the background to this activity). We know that this is a high priority for UK LOCKSS Alliance members, and so wished to give an interim update on recent progress. Our current focus is integration of LOCKSS with Serials Solutions 360Link and Ex Libris’ SFX.
In August, we circulated a survey to understand the link resolver systems in use at member institutions. Here is a brief summary of the results:
We’re working with Ex Libris to include the LOCKSS target parser in the public SFX product. Separately, we’ve been able to configure a manual test integration: here’s a short video clip (without soundtrack) demonstrating a trial integration at Stanford.
In the last few weeks, we’ve begun testing LOCKSS with Serials Solutions 360Link. We’ve been able to ‘track’ a test knowledge base and following a search, access a title level journal. Our next step is to work with Serials Solutions to improve article-level linking.
Here are some screenshots of our very early test integration with Serials Solutions products:
Citation Linker
Results list
We will keep members informed as further progress is made, and would like to thank members for their patience to date. We’re excited that this is now nearing completion!
This post provides a background briefing for UK HE institutions who are not current members of the UK LOCKSS Alliance. It gives insight into Private LOCKSS Networks: we are currently undertaking a survey to assess interest in the use of Private LOCKSS Networks as a preservation option. Please complete the survey online.
The UK LOCKSS Alliance is a “cooperative movement of UK academic libraries that are committed to identify, negotiate, and build local archives of material that librarians and academic scholars deem significant.” JISC have awarded the UK LOCKSS Alliance Community Development funding, in part explicitly to look at Private LOCKSS Networks:
To review and assess the role of a Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) in the UK, moving to implementation if the recommendations are supportive. Private LOCKSS Networks are of significant interest to the UK community. The UK LOCKSS Alliance will engage with administrators of other PLNs to understand the type of content that can be preserved, and the models in which Private LOCKSS Networks can be operated. If appropriate, seed funding may be used to purchase hardware for a UK PLN.
What is a Private LOCKSS Network
Private LOCKSS Networks (PLNs) are groups of LOCKSS machines that preserve material of interest to small communities.
LOCKSS is network-driven decentralised preservation infrastructure. Each LOCKSS box acts as a repository. Preserved content is compared against the content of other LOCKSS boxes also holding that content. Using this polling mechanism the authenticity of the content can be assured and damage can be detected and repaired. Private LOCKSS Networks (PLNs) are small groups of LOCKSS boxes that are preserving content of shared interest. This is distinct from the public Global LOCKSS Network, which allows the preservation of journal content of wide interest.
Private LOCKSS Networks were discussed at a recent face-to-face meeting of UK members:
Members are interested in PLNs. A survey will be conducted to assess member’s precise requirements, and what they expect to use it for and get out of it.
Anecdotally, it appears that some institutions are interested in PLNs primarily as a ‘backup’ option, providing a form of geographically distributed redundancy.
Licensing issues around off-site preservation did not seem to be a problem. The indication was that a PLN would be a separate implementation and resource used only for the preservation of content, not serving.
There was interest in EDINA/MIMAS hosting and managing a PLN’s hardware.
Commitment to a PLN would be contingent upon good setup documentation being provided.
An open question is how multilateral the sharing will be; there is the potential for quite asymmetric sharing in terms of the quantity of materials shared, and its quality – is it particularly sensitive or valuable to research; is its integrity within the PLN absolutely essential to an institution. It is not clear how to draft an appropriate agreement between participating institutions.
There was general approval in the suggested approach of first assessing content and demand via a member survey, then setting up a task force of members to review and implement next steps.
Models of Private LOCKSS Networks
Here we briefly highlight three current Private LOCKSS Networks:
The MetaArchive Cooperative provides members with an evolving set of best practices and guidelines to consider as they select and appraise content for preservation purposes. These are not prescriptive requirements; they are conceptual considerations that MetaArchive members have documented out of their own experiences in making selection and appraisal decisions regarding what content to preserve and how to prioritize that content for preservation. These include the following topics:
Models of Operation for a UK PLN
The diagram below indicates potential models of operation for a UK Private LOCKSS Network.
Version 1.1 of our Quick Start guide improves the UK LOCKSS Alliance documentation for staff assigned to LOCKSS at both new and existing institutions in the Alliance.
The Quick Start guide describes:
- how staffing for LOCKSS is often organised within an institution.
- the communication channels in operation, and
- where to go for installation guidance and support.
The document also provides a short reference guide for librarians on adding content and monitoring the library’s collection.
In future versions, we plan to extend the reference guide to cover some of the more advanced functionality in LOCKSS. We are also preparing separate documentation to walk users through common processes such as adding or reviewing content.
A briefing update has been made available for members of the UK LOCKSS Alliance. This briefing contains a summary of notable LOCKSS developments over the past six months. In particular, UK members should note the following items:
Previous briefing papers are also available.
A UK LOCKSS Alliance Members’ Meeting was held on the 10th May 2011 at the National Railway Museum in York. The event provided members with an update of recent activities, a forum to share information between member institutions, and an opportunity to discuss activity for the period from now until 2013.
A summary report to collect together the key points and queries discussed is now available. The full agenda and presentations are available online.
On 19th April, the latest major version of LOCKSS was released.
This is an exciting release for us as several significant new developments will help LOCKSS to realise its long-term potential. Along with bug fixes and a few tweaks to the user interface, LOCKSS 1.48 introduces the ability to serve content based on OpenURL queries against the metadata extracted from preservable content. Given a request using an URL, a DOI, or OpenURL parameters, the content will be served from local holdings if it has been collected. If it is not available locally, or the publisher has made available a newer version, the user will be redirected to the online copy.
To support this process, fundamental metadata that was lacking in some records has been filled in with the help of the ISSN International Centre. A new tool allows title-level metadata listing the complete holdings available in LOCKSS to be exported in the industry-standard KBART format. The next version will provide the option to export only the holdings preserved in a particular machine. The export is available either in CSV format for import into a spreadsheet or library systems, or in a customisable HTML format which is useful for online browsing and searching. Link resolver vendors such as Serials Solutions (360 Link) and Ex Libris (SFX) are working with us to include the exported LOCKSS holdings data in their Knowledge Bases and to develop the components required to support OpenURL resolution to LOCKSS.
Additionally, a new metadata extraction framework supports the building of a database of article-level bibliographic information from preserved content.
The full release notes are at http://www.lockss.org/lockss/Daemon_Release_Notes.
Machines which are configured for automatic updates (as described on page 41 of the LOCKSS on Linux Install Instructions) should already have this version installed. You can see your current version in the footer of your LOCKSS user interface.
UKLA Members’ Workshop
We are also excited to be demonstrating the new features, in particular content serving, at the UK LOCKSS Alliance Workshop which is occurring on 10th May 2011 in York. Full details are available at http://edina.ac.uk/events/booking/uklamembersmgtg-may2011.html. Registration is officially closed but if you haven’t signed up and would like to attend please contact edina@ed.ac.uk. The workshop will include discussion of current and future developments and will be a chance to share user experiences and get involved in planning for the LOCKSS boxes of the future.
We recently had a support query on how to enable SSL for the user interface on a LOCKSS box running Linux. It seemed worth making the response available to members for future reference.
A help page on Network Administration is available on the LOCKSS website. This page describes the various options and parameters for administering access to the LOCKSS user interface.
The following guidance steps through basic configuration of HTTPS. We’ll try to update it as we ourselves learn more about the process. If you require additional support on the process, we suggest you contact us directly.
keytool -genkey -keystore adminks -alias lockss
/etc/lockss. These instructions assume it’s renamed admin.keystore
mv adminks /etc/lockss/admin.keystore
/etc/lockss/adminssl.txt:
org.lockss.accounts.policy=ssl org.lockss.ui.sslKeystoreName=adminks org.lockss.keyMgr.keystore.ks1.name=adminks org.lockss.keyMgr.keystore.ks1.file=/etc/lockss/admin.keystore org.lockss.keyMgr.keystore.ks1.keyPassword=<password>
where <password> is the private key password you assigned when running keytool. (Not the keystore password, which isn’t needed.)
/etc/lockss/config.dat and change the LOCKSS_PROPS_URL line to:
LOCKSS_PROPS_URL="http://props.lockss.org:8001/daemon/lockss.xml -p /etc/lockss/adminssl.txt"
/etc/init.d/lockss stop /etc/init.d/lockss start
Updated: 1st July 2011
An administrator in the UK has supplied documentation for using a JANET/TERENA certificate for the UI (or another CA signed certificate).
[root@lockss ~]# keytool -genkey -keystore adminks -alias lockss -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048
[root@lockss ~]# keytool -certreq -alias lockss -keystore adminks -keypass redacted -storepass redacted
[root@lockss ~]# cat longnumber.ca-bundle longnumber.crt >import
keytool -importcert -trustcacerts -alias lockss -file import -keypass redacted -keystore adminks -storepass redacted
We are pleased to announce that there will be a zero increase in UK LOCKSS Alliance membership fees for 2011-2012.
UK LOCKSS Alliance members and prospective institutions should note the following details:
We hope that this information will help institutions account for the UK LOCKSS Alliance in their budgeting decisions.
Pricing information for the current academic year (2010-11), is available on the JISC Collections website. A JISC Collections subscription page for 2011-12 onwards will be made available at a later date.
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