Open Archives Initiative – Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE)
http://www.openarchives.org/ore/

ORE will develop specifications that allow distributed repositories to exchange information about their constituent digital objects. These specifications will include approaches for representing digital objects and repository services that facilitate access and ingest of these representations. The specifications will enable a new generation of cross-repository services that leverage the intrinsic value of digital objects beyond the borders of hosting repositories. This has been added to Research Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.