Editors’ Note:
Within the U.S. and elsewhere, funding agencies are advancing digital preservation as a serious research area.  Digital preservation projects and cooperative international efforts have increased significantly over the past decade.  Examples include: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) collaborative international programs with the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), with the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and with the European Union (EU); and the international InterPARES recordkeeping project, which has received funding from a number of countries. These have spurred the development of an interdisciplinary domain that has as its primary goal ensuring long-term access to materials in digital format for legal, economic, and cultural purposes.  This domain unites the interests of librarians, archivists, museum specialists, and other preservation professionals with digital object creators, computer scientists, lawyers, publishers, and others.  The issues cut across government, non-profit, commercial, and academic sectors.  This article discusses one program that has increasing ties to digital program initiatives.

The National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program’s Role in the Long-Term Preservation of Digital Materials

Digital Government Research Program Managers:
Larry Brandt
lbrandt@nsf.gov

Valerie Gregg
vgregg@nsf.gov

Sue Stendebach
sstendeb@nsf.gov

As part of a major effort to preserve vital cultural heritage material, the National Science Foundation’s Digital Government Research Program (DG) and Digital Libraries Initiative Phase 2 are working closely with the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, The National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, and other organizations to map out a comprehensive research agenda.  The intent of this collaboration is to establish a research program that will support and encourage the exploration of innovative information technologies (IT), policies, economic models, and education and training that could ensure long-term preservation and future availability of such digital materials.

The National Science Foundation and its Digital Government Research Program

The need for the government to respond to rapid technological change provided the impetus for establishing the DG program.  The emergence of the Internet and its applications has fundamentally altered the environment in which government agencies at all levels conduct their missions and deliver services. These sweeping changes have also affected the mechanisms that underpin democracy and civic discourse. Concurrently, the public’s heightened expectations for government services are being driven by their increasing familiarity with the private sector’s rapid deployment of these new technologies to provide business-critical applications.  The government’s commitment to the development and application of information technology is defined by the scope and scale of the information services it is required to provide; the nature of its role as a collector, interpreter, distributor, and preserver of very large public data sets; the requirement it has to deliver services to all sectors of society, regardless of location, income level, or extent of computer expertise; the need to uphold its tacit and inviolable contract for accessible and reliable information sources and services; the need to balance national security requirements and the privacy of citizens; the need to select and maintain in perpetuity digital objects that are of value to the government or its citizens; and the need to implement the political, economic, and societal mandates that are expressed in law, regulation, and administrative procedures. 

The goal of the DG Research Program is to fund research at the intersections of the computer and information sciences research communities, related social, political, and behavioral science research communities, and the problems and missions of government agencies. The DG Research Program is predicated on three viewpoints:

• The government sector can usefully inform and enhance its strategic vision through academic research collaborations, thus speeding the innovation, development, deployment, and application of more advanced technologies, methods, policies and processes into usable systems.
• The unique combination of participants and requirements in the government sector presents new opportunities for academic researchers to gain access to important problems and data in real-world large-scale contexts.
• To make the best use of available resources to meet its broad range of goals and objectives, the government sector needs to understand and predict the impact of these technologies on government agencies and services, governance, and the democratic process.

The DG Research Program solicits two classes of proposals (or a combination of both) as follows:

1. Multi-disciplinary and multi-sector partnerships of researchers in information technologies and government agencies at all levels in order to foster collaboration among societal sectors. 
2. Social, political, and behavioral research on the effect of information technologies on the forms, processes, impact and outcomes of IT within government, both from the standpoint of government agencies and from the standpoint of the public at large.

The DG Research program is entering its fifth year of competition.  The DG Research Program’s next submission deadline is November 7, 2002, and in subsequent years, the second Wednesday in October.   Some examples of DG Research domain areas include electronic grants administration; interoperable data, networks and architectures; security, privacy and information assurance; Federal statistics; and long-term archiving of digital objects.  Details about research areas and applications can be found on the DG program’s Web site.

Digital Government and the Library/Archival Community: Project for the Long-Term Preservation of Digital Materials

How then can archivists and librarians make use of and help formulate research that is funded by the DG Research Program?  A prime opportunity is the current long-term digital preservation project.  In accordance with the Digital Government model, the staff of the Library of Congress and other government librarians and preservation professionals brought to NSF’s attention a pressing need to develop and employ cutting-edge technologies to successfully preserve the myriad heterogeneous digital materials, all of which are increasing at an unprecedented rate.  Technological challenges abound in this area.  Further challenges in deciding upon and implementing new technologies confront those responsible for ensuring long-term preservation. At present, common, consensus-based policies and procedures are not in place to guide the collection, sharing, preservation and archiving of information in digital format.  Finding innovative methods for the long-term preservation of this information and associated materials will require intensive IT research and development, and associated agreed-upon policies—in collaboration with the affected libraries and archives, as well as non-profit and commercial interests.  Without the full cooperation among the library and archive community, a universal set of technologies and associated policies can neither be developed nor implemented successfully.

Similarly, digital preservation research cannot just begin at the door of IT, but must also include exploration of legal, organizational, political, and societal needs and impacts.  The technology is ultimately key to a successful long-term preservation system; however, without considering these other impacts, a system is not likely to succeed.

In April 2002, NSF hosted a workshop in cooperation with the Library of Congress.  Dr. Margaret Hedstrom, as Principal Investigator, led the two-day working meeting of a multi-disciplinary group of 50 participants, including those from academic institutions, government agencies, professional associations, and private businesses.  The main research categories derived from the workshop are: attributes of digital repositories, attributes of archived collections, tools and technologies, and economic and policy models.  Some of the specifically identified IT needs include:

• Identifier systems to formulate advanced naming hierarchies for digital collections of all sizes
• Enhanced and explicit collection definitions
• Standards and mechanisms for specifying the preservation characteristics of compound, hyperlinked and nested digital objects
• Approaches to maintain the consistency and longevity of digital objects in the face of a rapidly changing administrative and technological landscape.

• NSF, in collaboration with other government agencies, should establish a multi-disciplinary research program for the long-term preservation of digital materials.
• Government agencies, such as LC, NARA, NLM, IMLS, DOD, and others, should collaborate with the researchers to develop research proposals and to contribute resources, as appropriate.
• The new research program should be up to ten years in duration, reaching an annual award amount of $10 million by 2005.

The full research agenda for digital preservation, based on these and other identified needs, will be included in the final report, which should be available on-line and in hard copy format later this year. A pre-publication draft of the report: Research Challenges in Digital Archiving: Towards a National Infrastructure for Long-Term Preservation of Digital Information is available at: http://www.si.umich.edu/digarch/.

Following this path, NSF’s DG Research Program hopes to announce a special call for proposals specific to preservation of digital materials in the spring of 2003.  Given the keen interest of numerous researchers, collaboration among the relevant government agencies, and the willingness to develop partnerships in pursuing innovative research, the DG Program is confident that new technologies to accomplish the desired and necessary long-term preservation of digital materials will result.

Continually evolving long-term IT research will be necessary in all areas, as well as in digital preservation, to keep step with rapid changes in data, information availability and communication, technologies, government administrators and policies, and overall missions.  If we wish to retain our prominence as a society, government needs to lead the way, rather than follow.  The long-term preservation of digital materials project is but one example of how the DG Research Program can pave the way for researchers and agencies to bring government to the technological forefront.  Other ways in which libraries and archives might participate in and contribute to the DG program are:

• Defining and promoting the role of libraries and archives in the provision of products and services that support and enable digital government
• Developing approaches, tools, and techniques that enhance or encourage the information literacy of citizens
• Developing specific applications that improve or enable accessibility to digital formats or collections that fit within the scope of digital government

The DG Web site provides the most current information on the research agenda, program calls and announcements, and the annual dg.o conference that features the results of funded projects. 

Further information and context for DG research can be obtained from the following reports:

• Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government, a report by the National Research Council
• The Digital Government Web site
• Some Assembly Required: Building a Government for the 21^st Century, a report by the Center for Technology in Government of the University at Albany, SUNY
• Toward the Digital Government in the 21^st Century, a report by the Information Sciences Institute at the U. of Southern California
• Research Agenda for Granting Agencies, a report by the Center for Technology in Government of the University at Albany, SUNY
• Developing a Social Science Research Agenda for Digital Government, a report by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
• Unexpected Events, a report by the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California
• Transforming Access to Government, a report from the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee
• The President’s E-Government Strategy
• National Science Foundation Web site
• Digital Government Research Program Web site
• Digital Libraries Initiative Phase 2 Web site

Publishing Information

RLG DigiNews (ISSN 1093-5371) is a newsletter conceived by the members of the Research Libraries Group's PRESERV community. Funded in part by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) 1998-2000, it is available internationally via the RLG PRESERV Web site. It will be published six times in 2002. Materials contained in RLG DigiNews are subject to copyright and other proprietary rights. Permission is hereby given for the material in RLG DigiNews to be used for research purposes or private study. RLG asks that you observe the following conditions: Please cite the individual author and RLG DigiNews (please cite URL of the article) when using the material; please contact Jennifer Hartzell, RLG Corporate Communications, when citing RLG DigiNews.

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