Editors’ Note: This is a trial feature for RLG DigiNews to highlight the potential of ten funded but not yet completed digital preservation research and development projects. It has been our practice to seek articles on the results of research and development in the areas of digitization and digital preservation. So much is happening in the digital world that has great potential for broad use within the cultural heritage community that we just can’t wait until they’re done! This is not – and could not be - an exhaustive list. We aimed for a balance by topic, country, and domain – archives, libraries, museums. If your project or initiative is included on our list, we hope that pleases you and that we have highlighted you accurately. If your project does not appear on this first list and you would like it to be, we would love to hear from you. Depending on your response to this initial effort, we will compile additional lists periodically. Suggestions for future lists are very welcome.

1. The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) of the Library of Congress has developed eight cooperative digital preservation partnerships. We are highlighting one of those partnerships:

Name: The ECHO DEPository Project, 2004-2007
URL:	www.ndiipp.uiuc.edu/
Topic:	Web archiving methodology and practice
Description:	The ECHO DEPository Project has four core activity areas: devising a rationale and methodology for selecting web materials for digital preservation, developing tools to support the selection model, evaluating open source repository software, and conducting preservation strategy research.
Potential/ significance:	‘Tools’ has become a buzzword of sorts, but the tools envisioned by this project for finding, analyzing, and capturing web content could be a major community contribution. Selection is a key focus area. If the evaluation phase of the project defines generalizable criteria, that would be also be a significant development.
Country:	USA
Participants/ partners:	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (the UI Library, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), with the Perseus Project at Tufts University, the Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University Library, and an alliance of state libraries from Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
Funding Source:	NDIIPP

2.The Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation (DIGARCH) program, sponsored by the Library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and National Science Foundation (NSF), selected ten digital preservation projects for one-year funding. We are highlighting one of those projects:

Name: Incentives for Data Producers to Create Archive-Ready Data Sets, 2005-2006
URL:	www.si.umich.edu/research/project.htm?ResearchID=73
Topic:	Incentives for producers in digital preservation
Description:	This project is investigating ways to increase cooperation between producers and archives. It will identify barriers for producers in depositing data and incentive mechanisms for them to deposit archive-ready data sets in an archive.
Potential/ significance:	We know a lot about the challenges of and barriers to digital preservation; we need to understand and leverage incentives. The project also focuses on an important and sometimes overlooked class of digital content, datasets.
Country:	USA
Participants/ partners:	University of Michigan School of Information and ICPSR
Funding Source:	Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation (DIGARCH)

3. Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions program of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has funded eleven projects focusing on a range of topics. We are highlighting one of those projects:

Name: DAAT: Digital Asset Assessment Tool, 2004-2006
URL:	ahds.ac.uk/about/projects/daat/
Topic:	Digital content preservation needs assessment
Description:	A three-stage project to develop a tool for determining the preservation needs of digital holdings. The first stage will evaluate the adaptability of the National Preservation Office’s Preservation Assessment Survey (PAS) methodology for physical materials to digital materials. Stages two and three will develop and pilot the tool.
Potential/ significance:	Needs assessment is closely aligned with gap analysis and the ability to prioritize the allocation of resources for preserving digital collections. Institutions require a systematic approach for needs assessment.
Country:	UK
Participants/ partners:	Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) and the Digital Archives Department at the University of London Computing Centre (ULCC)
Funding Source:	JISC

4. The Metadata Research Center is sponsored by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. We are highlighting one of their projects:

Name: Metadata Generation Research (MGR), 2005-
URL:	ils.unc.edu/mrc/mgr.html
Topic:	Automated metadata generation
Description:	The MGR project is developing a model to facilitate the most efficient and effective means of metadata production by integrating human and automatic processes.
Potential/ significance:	This is not a digital preservation research project, per se, but metadata is a cost center for all digital projects, including digital preservation. Research such as this can make long-term access more feasible by reducing metadata costs while improving metadata quality. Note the publications list on the website. The model for this research center is one that should be replicated to focus on other core research issues.
Country:	USA
Participants/ partners:	Metadata Research Center at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina (SILS/UNC-CH), in collaboration with the National Institute of Environmental Sciences (NIEHS), an Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
Funding Source:	Microsoft Research, OCLC, UNC’s University Research Council

5. SURF is the higher education and research partnership organisation for network services and information and communications technology (ICT) in the Netherlands. We are highlighting one of the projects they have funded :

Name: Digital Academic Repositories (DARE), 2003-2006
URL:	www.surf.nl/en/themas/index2.php?oid=7
Topic:	Digital asset infrastructure
Description:	The DARE initiative will develop a shared infrastructure to manage academic information and to make research results more accessible.
Potential/ significance:	Collaboration and resource sharing are essential to the success and viability of digital preservation programs. The lessons learned by this initiative will contribute to collaborative efforts elsewhere.
Country:	Netherlands
Participants/ partners:	The Dutch universities with KB (National Library of the Netherlands), the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and the NWO (Netherands Organisation for Scientific Research).
Funding Source:	SURF

6. The Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) of the Department of Education Science and Training is part of the Commonwealth Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability - An Innovative Action Plan for the Future. We are highlighting one of the SII-funded projects:

Name: Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR), 2004-2006
URL:	www.apsr.edu.au/
Topic:	Sustainable digital repositories
Description:	APSR has an ambitious program for 2005-2006 that includes the integration of preservation metadata into open source repositories, a GIS metadata capture tool, guidelines, such as for trusted digital repositories in higher education, sustainable models for common file formats, risk analysis including a risk notification tool implementation, ‘Fedora in a Box,’ and documentation focusing on core issues and standards.
Potential/ significance:	The APSR initiative promises to fill in a number of the organizational gaps in digital preservation management with policy-level documentation, procedures, and tools.
Country:	Australia
Participants/ partners:	Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, National Library of Australia, and APAC
Funding Source:	Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII)

7. The Digital Preservation and Records Management program of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has funded eight projects. We are highlighting one of these:

Name: Digital Curation Centre (DCC), 2004-2006
URL:	www.dcc.ac.uk/
Topic:	Long-term management (digital curation) of digital assets
Description:	The DCC has a defined a set tools and research deliverables, among them the Digital Curation Manual, a standards watch, a catalog of digital curation tools, a training program, testbeds as well as a research agenda that includes annotation, data integration, appraisal, rights, responsibility, viability, and performance.
Potential/ significance:	The DCC is just beginning to produce what promises to be an impressive slate of deliverables, including the first chapter in the digital curation manual. The model for this center is an enviable one that is hopefully sustainable and adaptable to other national contexts.
Country:	UK
Participants/ partners:	The University of Edinburgh (including: Database Research Group within the School of Informatics, AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, and EDINA); National e-Science Centre at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow; Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow; UKOLN at the University of Bath; Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC).
Funding Source:	JISC Digital Preservation and Records Management program and the e-Science core programme

8. The Andrew W Mellon Foundation actively supports digital preservation initiatives and has recently awarded a grant to the Center for Research Libraries for digital archives certification:

Name: Auditing and Certification of Digital Archives, 2005-2006
URL:	www.crl.edu/content.asp?l1=13&l2=58&l3=142
Topic:	Digital archive certification
Description:	The project will develop processes and activities for certification and audit of digital archives and will leverage the work of the RLG/NARA Digital Repository Certification Task Force.
Potential/ significance:	Self-assessment as a developmental process and certification as an external review process are becoming increasingly significant for digital preservation programs. We could not compile a list of promising research without including a certification project. This initiative is the newest addition to certification development that features an applied component. RLG DigiNews will present a special issue on digital repository certification in October 2005.
Country:	USA
Participants/ partners:	Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
Funding Source:	The Andrew W Mellon Foundation

9. DELOS (Network of excellence on Digital Libraries) Digital Preservation Cluster (WP6) has a work plan for digital preservation:

Name: Digital Preservation Cluster, 2004-2006
URL:	www.dpc.delos.info/cluster/index.php
Topic:	Methodological framework and theory for digital preservation
Description:	The first work plan for the digital preservation cluster has identified a series of deliverables including a study of metrics for testing and validating digital preservation strategies and frameworks, a survey of digital repository systems and storage models, a report on file format registries and their relationship to preservation strategies, and a repository functionality analysis.
Potential/ significance:	The digital preservation community must be able to leverage community developments to build institutional programs. Activities such as those in this cluster contribute to that process for cummulative developement within the digital preservation community as well as to individual institutions' own collaborative efforts.
Country:	EU
Participants/ partners:	HATII, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom; Universität zu Köln, Germany; Nationaal Archief Netherlands, Netherlands; Phonogrammarchiv, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Austria; Technische Universität Wien, Austria; Universita' degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy; UKOLN, University of Bath, United Kingdom
Funding Source:	DELOS

10. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has an active research program. NARA has developed research partnerships that form the core of their research program.

Name: Virtual Archives Laboratory (VAL)
URL:	www.archives.gov/era/research/virtual-archives-lab.html
Topic:	Digital preservation research testbed
Description:	The VAL focuses on projects pertaining to scalability, persistence, and authenticity. This research will feed into the development of the Electronic Records Archive that NARA is building.
Potential/ significance:	Effective preservation planning necessitates ongoing community-based research. Large institutions that require and can afford research programs may offer significant contributions to the digital preservation community. The VAL is a potential model for collaborative research.
Country:	USA
Participants/ partners:	NARA, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS)