Harvey. I don't think the real issue is about how to preserve and deliver data just in case it is needed in the future: It is about defining what is data. And this definition is discipline-centric. To an historian, an original audio recording preserved on a wax cylinder is raw data. To a linguistic computationist, it may be a dataset that breaks down that conversation into word frequencies. To cultural archeologist, it may be a point on a geographic map that shows the placement of these artifacts. To a social scientist, it might be a value statement expressed in the recording that is plotted with other such statements over time...okay, you get the point. Ultimately, the definition of data comes down to what the community of practice considers data. And often this definition is based on what is considered reasonable proof of a valid observation. I tend to agree with Phil's remarks above. Ultimately the data preservation issue is a funding issue and the funders are addressing it at the grant level. In the US the funding agencies several years ago formed the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data or IWGDD. I was lucky to do staff work for them from the first meeting until their first report in January 2009: http://www.nitrd.gov/About/Harnessing_Po\\... . The upshot was that each agency should consider having its own policy. At NSF this meant requiring a data management plan with every proposal. Today the general policy is that if someone thinks certain data is worth