Digital Preservation and Digital Libraries

In creating a digital library collection on World War II, Texas A&M University-Commerce discovered an opportunity to work in partnership with local museums, public libraries, and historical societies. This diverse community greatly expands our ability to preserve historical resources and make them available to scholars worldwide.

Three years ago the University of Central Florida (UCF) began an electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) submission process to enable students to disseminate their research widely and quickly. This research bulletin highlights how UCF implemented the ETD and discusses the necessary policy and procedural changes, including those that were unexpected, and the work now being done.

Almost without exception, students produce theses and dissertations in electronic formats, and it would seem that an institutional electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) program would be the rule and not the exception. In the United States, however, ETD programs have been slow to gain ground; other countries are far ahead in implementing comprehensive strategies for the creation of and access to ETDs. The focus of this bulletin is on the development of institutional policies to address ETDs and the changes needed in academic culture to implement robust ETD programs. The value of ETDs as institutional intellectual assets is also explored.

This research bulletin is a companion to ECAR bulletin #18, 2005, "Digital Preservation: A Campus-Wide Perspective" by the same authors. The earlier bulletin outlined the stewardship responsibilities of the academy with respect to administrative and scholarly content. This bulletin explores a proposed model for establishing a digital preservation program in colleges and universities—requirements for educating the institutional community, developing roles and policies, and establishing an integrated technical architecture to support the complete life cycle of digital information. The model was developed at the University of Kansas.