Abstract: Scientists around the world are addressing the need to increase access to research data. Science is international and global cooperation is imperative. DataCite, launched in December 2009, is an association of more than a dozen members from 10 countries and growing, that enables researchers to locate, identify, and cite research datasets with confidence, and plays a global leadership role in promoting the use of persistent identifiers for datasets. In June 2010, the first DataCite summer meeting took place in Hannover, Germany and provided a forum for 25 speakers and nearly 100 participants from Europe, North America and Australia to exchange information for handling research data. This special issue of D-Lib Magazine includes eight articles derived from talks given at the summer meeting and one additional article on the quality of research data. Together, these articles provide a snapshot of the state-of-the-art on these topics.