SAFE-PLN partners are glad to announce their data archiving grid is open to international partners.
Using a data grid, the five institutions agree to archive each others’ open access collections across two continents, two timezones, four languages and in seven copies to guarantee perpetual access to their scientific heritage. The head of libraries of five universities have signed a collaboration agreement on deploying a preservation solution for open access collections of dissertations, publications and research data: Ghent University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Universität Bielefeld, Université Catholique de Louvain and Université Libre de Bruxelles Their solution, named SAFE-PLN ("SAFE Archiving Federation Private LOCKSS Network"), consists in deploying an internationally distributed network to safeguard core collections. It is based on the open-source preservation software LOCKSS (http://www.lockss.org/community/networks/) developed by Stanford University. Worldwide, SAFE-PLN is the third fully operational PLN with an international scope. More information is available on the project website: www.safepln.org.