Digital Preservation of Theses and Dissertations Through Collaboration

While university libraries have a long tradition of preserving scholarship, they are less experienced in the technology-dependent and computer networked environment. By taking advantage of current activities and expertise that exist in various parts of the institution, policies and practices can be linked that will engender long-term accessibility. Under ideal circumstances preservation is not an isolated process; rather, it is built into the information life cycle beginning with a work's creation and continuing through to storage and access. Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) provide a good starting point to determine the processes and policies that will lead to confidence in digital preservation.