At the moment, service providers have various problems: 1. The standard protocol (pros and cons), 2. Lack of a unified DP register, 3. Low DP standards (use of a controlled vocabulary, classification systems, Structures of OAI-PMH set, use of metadata format), 4. Communication of data from DP (descriptive information: type of content, number of records, harvesting problems, character’s codification), 5. Quality of metadata and content, 6. Forward and backward duplication, 7. Appropriate copy, 8. Preservation, 9. IPR (Intellectual Property Right), 10. Authority control.
The roles of service providers are: 
1.	SP as aggregation services of information, digital libraries and meta-libraries. 
2.	SP depend on DP as MetaOPAC depends to single catalogues.
3.	SP enhance the scholarly production’s visibility and impact increasing the value of the content of DP
In order to perform these functions, the most important things are:
-	Advocacy in the authors
-	Institutional policies to fill up the archives
-	Agreement with editors for the author’s maintenance of copyright
-	Standardization of metadata
-	Wider cooperation and collaboration