Growing the MetaArchive Cooperative: ETDs (electronic theses and dissertations) Gail McMillan Digital Library and Archives, Virginia Tech July 2008 NDIIPP Partners Meeting We’re missing Caroline Arms from LoC who suggested that you might like to know about preservation of ETDs: Electronic Theses and Dissertations.

Background of the MetaArchive http://www.metaarchive.org MetaArchive of Southern Digital Culture LOCKSS Dark Archive Conspectus Database Charter Membership Agreement 6 universities that began the MetaArchive of Southern Digital Culture and evolved into the MetaArchive Cooperative are Emory Auburn Florida St Georgia Tech Louisville And Virginia Tech Collection-level metadata stored in our Conspectus Database, devised from various existing standards plus a few elements we wanted Created legal documents: CHARTER and MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT Membership: types, fees, benefits/responsibilities Organization and Governance Services and Operations Educopia?

Virginia Tech http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses 1st university to require ETDs Jan. 1, 1997 ~12,000 ETDs NDLTD: National >> Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations http://www.ndltd.org Some of you may have known VT for its football team: Beamer Ball or last year’s April 16 shootings But before that 1st uni to require graduate students to submit their theses and dissertations electronically. ~1996-98: Dept of Ed. FIPSE: Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education Today we have about 10,000 Born-digital ETDs, and about 2,000 scanned TDs

MetaArchive + NDLTD Share a goal Demonstrate a need Help higher education institutions provide long-term open access to ETDs Demonstrate a need Survey http://lumiere.lib.vt.edu/surveys/

98 Responses to ETD Survey 15% Assoc. of Research Libraries 11% Assoc. of SE Research Libraries 9% Council of Graduate Schools 10% Digital Library Federation 32% NDLTD, ETD listserv 23% Others While the MetaArchive Cooperative felt there would be an interest among universities for an ETD Archive, 1/2 of respondents: US universities 1/3: International universities

Over 1/3 of those unis accept only the electronic formats Over 3/4 of the survey responses came from universities that accept ETDs. Over 1/3 of those unis accept only the electronic formats We also asked about File formats Repository and platform software How their collections are structured

SHOCKER!! The most surprising response to any question in the ETD Preservation Survey was the response to “Does your institution have a formalized preservation plan for its ETDs?” Only about one-quarter of the universities responding indicated that they have a preservation plan for their ETDs, leaving nearly three-fourths of the universities that accept ETDs without formal preservation plans!

Would your institution be interested in participating in an ETD-specific LOCKSS-based collaborative distributed archive sponsored by the NDLTD? 92% Yes or Maybe

ETD Preservation Workshop June 4, 2008, Aberdeen, Scotland 11th International Symposium on ETDs DDPN, LOCKSS, MetaArchive Roles, responsibilities; ingest basics Collection prep, metadata, copyright Charter Membership Agreement About 25 attendees to a 1/2-day preconference that Martin Halbert, from Emory University, and MetaArchive director Survey findings Overview of distributed digital preservation, LOCKSS, the MetaArchive Cooperative; and requirements; hardware, software, tech support, staff, skills Roles, responsibilities of members; basics of harvesting and ingest Preparing a collection for ingest into the ETD archive, how collections should be organized, collection-level metadata, and intellectual property issues Charter and Membership Agreement

Ohmygosh they want to join!!! MetaArchive Charter MetaArchive Membership Agreement Categories Benefits Responsibilities Fees Really realistic? Discounts for dual membership: MetaArchive+NDLTD? Define steps to joining and implementation