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Developing preservation processes for a trusted digital repository will require the integration of new methods, policies, standards, and technologies. Digital repositories should be able to preserve electronic materials for periods at least comparable to existing preservation methods. Modern computing technology in general is barely fifty years old and few of us have seen or used digital objects that are more than ten years old. While traditional preservation practices are comparatively well-developed, lack of experience and lack of consensus raise some questions about how we should proceed with digital-based preservation processes. Can we preserve a digital object for at least one-hundred years? Can we answer questions such as "Is this object the digital original"? or "How old is this digital object"? What does it mean to be a trusted repository of digital materials? A basic premise of this article is that there are many technologies available today that will help us build trust in a digital preservation process and that these technologies can be readily integrated into an operational digital preservation framework.

The objective of this paper is two-fold: to propose a theoretical framework and model for studying organizational innovation in research libraries and to set forth propositions that can provide directions for future empirical studies of innovation in research libraries. Research libraries can be considered members of a class of organizations referred to here as institutional nonprofits. As such, these organizations inherit many of the innovative properties that are associated with the broader sector of service organizations. However, institutional nonprofits have unique characteristics that distinguish them from other service organizations such as government agencies and for-profit service firms. In this paper, institutional theory is used to explain the forces that are acting on the research library. Research from organizational learning, structural contingency theory, and typologies of service organizations are used to establish a more encompassing innovation framework. Based on the literature review, the theoretical framework, and empirical studies, this paper presents a process model and propositions that characterize how the research library might innovate. These propositions can be tested in empirical studies to develop a fuller understanding of innovation in research libraries.fundamental question for innovation research is to explain how innovations occur. Innovation can be studied at many different levels-the individual, the work group, the organization, and at industrial or cross-national levels. This research will focus on organizational innovation in a relatively understudied sector: nonprofit, service organizations (and, more specifically, research libraries).1 In general, innovativeness is a desirable trait for social organizations. In a commercial or for-profit firm, an innovation may be initiated because there is an opportunity to increase profit or gain a competitive edge. For nonprofits, innovation is motivated by the desire to advance the public good. In a research library, the public good consists of the activities to support scholarly communication and the advancement of knowledge for faculty, students, staff, and the broader public community. These initiatives support the mission of the parent institution to produce informed citizens who can participate in the democratic crl-302

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