The ability to exchange AIPs between preservation repositories will be 
critical to the national (and global) preservation infrastructure.  It 
is needed for many reasons including:

-- to have some degree of redundancy, so very valuable content can be 
stored in different repositories with different preservation methods
-- to allow for software migrations from one generation of repository 
application to another
-- to provide for succession, should one repository fail.

The way I see it, simply replicating content, LOCKSS-wise, isn't 
adequate.  We'll need to be able to export and import the entire AIP 
along with any preservation metadata that applies to it, including 
events (provenance), relationships, and format information.  We will 
probably want to export DIPs that include complete PREMIS metadata, 
probably expressed in METS or DIDL.

I have a preservation repository (the Florida Digital Archive) that has 
been in production since late 2005 using DAITSS software.  DAITSS 
creates and stores nearly all relevant PREMIS metadata, but it can not 
yet export a DIP with PREMIS in METS, or import a SIP created from such 
a DIP.  That is development we want to do.  I would like to apply for a 
grant to help support a) building this capacity in DAITSS and (if 
necessary) some other system, and b) testing the exchange of these 
packages with the other repository as a proof of concept.  It would also 
test and help solidify best practices for representing PREMIS in METS.

To do this I need a partner institution in the U.S. who has an 
operational PREMIS-conformant preservation repository and wants to do 
the same thing.

Any takers?  If you have any interest in talking about this, please 
contact me off list.

Priscilla Caplan
Florida Center for Library Automation