4. Conclusion

These results could easily extend to discussion of: the importance of making an explicit statement of preservation commitment; the usefulness of a lifecycle view in digital preservation planning; the challenge of modifying or creating new organizational routines in response to digital preservation challenges; strategies for controlling the costs of digital preservation; the use of preservation metadata schemes such as METS for ETDs; and ETD preservation in the context of general models and infrastructures for digital preservation, including the OAIS Reference Model and institutional repositories. While I do not have space to discuss these topics, I hope the results and discussion above provide some basis for considering the connections.

Digital preservation presents a host of new problems and contexts; however, at a fundamental level it remains a familiar challenge: for libraries and archives to act as responsible and effective stewards of intellectual heritage. Preservation programs are most likely to succeed when the mundane organizational and technical concerns have strong connections to the fundamental role of stewardship. The above results and discussion are offered with an interest in suggesting and strengthening these connections.

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