Systems which provide a basis for digital preservation within a trusted digital repository must be able to systemically generate and record information about significant activities undertaken upon materials under stewardship. This paper describes the history component of the DSpace™ institutional repository system, which offers an information model suitable for recording such information, and generates metadata which describes how the content and metadata associated with works within the system change over time.DSpace is an open-source software platform originally developed by HP Labs and MIT Libraries that provides the basic functionality required to operate an institutional digital repository. The system is intended to serve as a base for future development to address long term preservation and access issues. An instance of the system has been deployed in production at MIT Libraries since November 2002, where it serves as the basis of MIT Libraries' digital preservation service offering. DSpace has included a history component since its deployment at MIT and release as open-source software. The DSpace history component has since been extended as part of the SIMILE Project to strengthen the underlying information model, and to include networked access and query capability.This paper describes the history component of the DSpace institutional repository system: the motivation for the history component, the functionality of the history component; the information model which underpins the metadata which it generates; architecture and design tradeoffs encountered during its development; lessons learned having undertaken the work to date; and areas for future work.