Formal education and professional development within the LARM professions has traditionally focused on paper. As a consequence, many of the skills required for the preservation of state government information in digital form have not been developed, and in some cases even identified. To get at the extent of the skills gap, the advisory committee requested a significant segment of the survey be devoted to this question. To support the collection of this information the advisory committee identified 12 specific categories of digital preservation capability (see Table 2).

The majority of respondents indicated that their LARM units, or some combination of the three, are in need of basic or advanced training in all categories. In 11 of the 12 categories 25% or less of the respondents report that training has already been provided. Respondents reported a high of 34% for training in Identifying key stakeholders already provided and a low of 8% for Manage the long-term storage of digital information in a repository. The high-level of need for basic and advanced training may signal an overall low to medium level of capability for digital preservation across the states. Several respondents further stated that training alone is not sufficient to build digital preservation capabilities; funding, digital preservation related tools, and personnel was identified as more critical at this stage than training.

Barriers to building capability within the current professional community include developing appropriate material and identifying organizations to assume responsibility for continuing education programs including identifying qualified trainers. New curricula for undergraduate and graduate programs was also identified as necessary in addressing the capability gap.

Interestingly, while respondents indicate a high level of new training is necessary to build capability within LARM units, these same units are currently responsible for providing consulting and training services to executive agencies and to a lesser extent, judicial and legislative agencies in these same areas (See Tables 9, 10, and 11).

Table 2. Levels of training needed for digital preservation activities
Capability	Basic or advanced training needed	Training already provided
Identify the type and amount of digital information throughout the state	80% (49)	20% (12)
Select and appraise state government information in digital form	76% (47)	24% (15)
Identify key stakeholders related to specific digital information (other local/state agencies, other states, private sector, etc.)	66% (40)	34% (21)
Negotiate and make agreements with key stakeholders to preserve digital information	78% (47)	22% (13)
Acquire state government information in digital form for holdings	78% (47)	22% (13)
Manage state government information in digital form (metadata, reformatting, etc.)	83% (50)	17% (10)
Manage the ingest of digital information into a repository	79% (49)	21% (13)
Manage the long-term storage of digital information in a repository	92% (57)	8% (5)
Develop mechanisms to monitor the long-term usability of state government information in digital form	89% (54)	11% (7)
Make state government information in digital form accessible to users	77% (47)	23% (14)
Produce a disaster and recovery planning for state government information in digital form	82% (51)	18% (11)
Manage copyright, security, and other legal issues of relevance to state government digital information	84% (55)	16% (10)