NSF, Library of Congress award E-records grants.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Library of Congress have made 11 awards totaling $2.5 million through their newly established Digital Archiving and Long-term Preservation program (DIGARCH) to help preserve the nation's intellectual, social, and cultural history, much of which is now in digital format.

This research will contribute to the library's 2000 congressional initiative, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). NDIIPP is a national, collaborative effort led by the Library of Congress to continue to fulfill its mission to "sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations in the digital age.

Lawrence Brandt, program manager for the NSF's computer and information science and engineering directorate, said, "Digital preservation at present is of central importance for scientific data, such as expensive observations under water or in space. As a society, however, we are creating more and more information which is digital in its original form."

The DIGARCH research program was formed in response to needs identified through a 2002 workshop. The awards range from $99,000 to $500,000 to perform one to three years of research. The projects cover research on continued access to data, the prevention of data deterioration, software and hardware technologies, and the development of new data formats and standards.

"In the decades to come, we will all want to be sure of the availability, of such things as family pictures, health records, and home movies. These research projects are taking the first steps to make sure we can," said Brandt.