A fundamental issue of digital preservation is that information resources must often out-live the systems that are used to maintain them at any given time. It is also important to consider sustainability across the boundaries of collection environments. Portability is an essential consideration. The project called “A Model Technological and Social Architecture for the Preservation of State Government Digital Information,” administered by the Minnesota Historical Society, is developing strategies and systems to provide enhanced online access to state legislative materials. The project is testing software and strategies to collect and provide access to state legislative documents and associated contextual information. The long-term sustainability of the effort will require interoperability among a various parties, including (1) those who might share responsibility for the preservation of legislative resources from Minnesota, and (2) collecting institutions from other states who would like to make use of the project's methods and software. The author is investigating characteristics of the state legislative information system that are most likely to support or hinder portability of software and digital objects across the boundaries of organizations. The findings from this investigation should be relevant to information professionals responsible for digital collections or collection management systems that must be sustained across the boundaries of specific technical or organizational arrangements.