Digital Preservation in a Time of Disorder – Knowledge Commons

"Knowledge Commons has applied for a significant grant from Lever for Change to build, implement, and sustain a digital preservation network that will be free from the US government’s, and any other single government’s, interference.

We are well-placed to do this. Knowledge Commons (KC) is a nonprofit, community-governed, open-access platform for creating and sharing knowledge world-wide. KC serves more than 55,000 researchers, instructors, artists, students, and other members of the public around the world. KC is committed to working with its communities to cultivate open spaces where all can connect, create, share, and experiment. Our goal is the transformation of global knowledge systems, making the products and processes of knowledge creation accessible to all, for the common good.

But, in the present moment, our US-centeredness is a significant threat to that mission. We propose to establish three linked but independent nonprofit public-benefit companies incorporated in the US, Europe, and South Africa, all dedicated to the social and technological processes of gathering, preserving, and ensuring the public accessibility of academic research. Our network of partners, both inside and outside of academic library communities, will help us ensure that research can be protected from censorship, interference, and digital ephemerality...."