OMB E-Gov InitiativeNARA is working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement the President's Management Agenda for expanding electronic government. The President's E-Government Strategy is engaged in 24 government-wide initiatives to integrate agency operations and information technology investments. The goal of these initiatives is to eliminate redundant systems and significantly improve the government's quality of customer service for citizens and businesses through a variety of E-Gov Initiatives. This will ultimately make it simpler for citizens to receive high-quality service from the Federal Government, while reducing the cost of delivering those services.NARA is the managing partner of one of these 24 initiatives, entitled E-Government Electronic Records Management (E-Gov, ERM) Initiative. This initiative will provide the tools that agencies will need to manage their records in electronic form, addressing specific areas of electronic records management where agencies are having major difficulties.The projects that are part of the ERM Initiative are organized into four issue areas, each with a lead Federal agency. Of the four issue areas, NARA is the lead agency on the issue area relating to the transfer of permanent records to NARA (i.e., issue area 4). Issue area 4 focuses on the transfer of electronic records in formats not previously accepted by NARA. The articulated goal is: “to provide the tools for agencies to access electronic records for as long as required and to transfer permanent electronic records to NARA for preservation and future use by government and citizens.” This paper discusses the process, products, and lessons learned in issue area 4.Issue area 4, Transfer of Permanent E-records to NARA expands both the number of formats NARA can accept, and the media and techniques that can be used by Federal agencies when transferring their permanently valuable electronic records to the National Archives of the United States.This project has three major components that will facilitate the transfer of electronic records to the National Archives for preservation and future use by Government and citizens.Additional Transfer MechanismsBefore the Electronic Records Management Initiative, NARA regulations specified that agencies transfer permanent electronic records to the National Archives of the United States via open-reel magnetic tape, 3480-class tape cartridges, and CD-ROM. As part of the Initiative, NARA revised its regulation, effective January 29, 2003, to expand the transfer methods to include higher density DLT tape media and media-less File Transfer Protocol. http://www.archives.gov/about_us/regulations/part_1228_l.htmlMetadata and XML Schema ProjectThe objectives of the Records Management Metadata and Schema Project were to identify the metadata needed to transfer electronic records to NARA and to create the XML schema to encapsulate those metadata elements. This XML records transfer schema was completed and registered in a Federal repository in June 2003.Additional Transfer FormatsNARA and partner agencies identified six priority records electronic formats for NARA to use in developing transfer guidance. These formats include:• Email with attachments (issue date September 30, 2002),• Scanned Textual Images (issue date December 23, 2003)• Portable Document Format (PDF) (issue date March 31, 2003),• Digital Photography (issue date November 12, 2003)• Digital Geospatial Records (issue date April 15, 2004)• Web Based Records (issue date September 17, 2004)This paper describes the collaborative process NARA is using to work with Federal agencies in accomplishing the goals of issue area 4, it provides examples of records transfer guidance issued by NARA, and discusses lessons learned.