Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries
Pascalia Boutsiouci
+41 44 632 84 26
pascalia.boutsiouci@library.ethz.ch

Central storage service for licensed content

A scenario for transferring academic material in electronic format into an "E-Depot" for local storage was first implemented in the pilot project "Journal server", part of the "E-Archiving" module of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries.

The first stage of the “E-Archiving” project was to examine the theoretical feasibility as well as the possibilities and limits of this approach. Based on this and within the framework of “e-lib.ch”, the “E-Depot” range of services was developed, which is designed to enable licensed content to be stored locally, tailored to the needs of individual libraries and the Consortium.

However, the technically successful implementation of E-Depot revealed that it is only possible to realise this scheme with continuously high levels of staff outlay and financial expenditure. The decision has therefore been taken to cancel the development and continuation of E-Depot as a permanent service.

The external offers from Portico and LOCKSS are now being investigated more thoroughly and compared, with the aim of informing the Consortium partners in the foreseeable future about potential alternatives for accessing licensed content following the cancellation. This will also allow the Consortium to benefit from the experiences of the ETH-Bibliothek, which is currently gaining further insights from a test installation of LOCKSS.

The project is closed.