The Cornell University Library, New York University Libraries and the 
Florida Center for Library Automation are happy to announce the receipt 
of an IMLS National Leadership Grant for the demonstration project: 
Towards Interoperable Preservation Repositories (TIPR).

The task of preserving our digital heritage for future generations far 
exceeds the capacity of any government or institution. Responsibility 
must be distributed across a number of stewardship organizations running 
heterogeneous and geographically dispersed digital preservation 
repositories. For reasons of redundancy, succession planning and 
software migration, these repositories must be able to exchange copies 
of archived information packages with each other. Practical 
repository-to-repository transfer will require a common, standards-based 
transfer format capable of transporting rich preservation metadata as 
well as digital objects, and repository systems must be capable of 
exporting and importing information packages utilizing this format.

The three TIPR partners run three technically heterogeneous, 
geographically distributed digital preservation repositories.  Cornell 
University Library runs CUL-OAIS based on aDORe, New York University 
Libraries' Preservation Repository is based on DSpace, and the FCLA's 
Florida Digital Archive uses DAITSS.  The TIPR partners will:
* design a shared transfer format based on METS and PREMIS schemas;
* enhance each of their preservation repository systems to support 
import and export of this information;
* test the actual transfer of processed and enriched archival 
information packages between the three repository systems.

The goals of the project are to:
* demonstrate the feasibility of repository-to-repository transfer of 
rich archival information packages;
* advance the state of the art by identifying and resolving issues that 
impede such transfers;
* develop a usable, standards-based transfer format, building on prior 
work;
* disseminate these results to the international preservation community 
and the relevant standards activities.

This two-year project will begin October 1, 2008.