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According to Stephen Zink, there are various possible organizational approaches to providing technology and information support. He sees the two (technology and information) as inseparable in the current and future information environment. He believes that a coordinated federated model of support, which is only one facet of the numerous organizational changes taking place within the Information Resources and Technologies Division at the University of Nevada, is a logical extension of the information age ‐ placing assistance close at hand and making the experience as intermediary free as possible. This trend began with individual personal computers on desktops, continued through early networking efforts with microcomputers, and moves on toward the goal of a campus network that is sufficiently robust and flexible to handle Internet 2 activities. Throughout its infrastructure, emphasis is being placed on the intelligent network. The federated model of support for this environment is viewed as being one solution to providing key information support to clients at the point closest to where and when they are needed.

This editorial discusses long‐term archiving and long‐term access to digital documents, with an emphasis on criteria for selection. Selecting materials for digital preservation depends on whether the materials are both valuable and endangered, whether appropriate digitization procedures and standards for these materials exist, and whether copyright allows reasonable access for educational and research purposes.

RLG is a not-for-profit international alliance of about 160 members, including universities and colleges, national and public research libraries, archives, historical societies, museums, and independent research collections devoted to improving access to information that supports research and learning. Founded in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group by four visionary library directors from Columbia, Harvard and Yale universities and the New York Public Library, the consortium formed to allow research institutions to tackle tough challenges via collaborative action. Key issues were managing the transition from locally self-sufficient and independently comprehensive collections to a system of interdependencies that would preserve and enhance the capacity for research in all fields of knowledge and improving the ability to locate and retrieve relevant research resources (RLG, 1986). At its inception, four activity areas were identified for collaborative action: cooperative bibliographic control and access; effective mechanisms for sharing information and resources among member institutions; expanded and coordinated collection development efforts; and preservation of the collections, either in the original or surrogate format.