title: Preserving Electronic Theses at the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums
creators: Sean Rippington Janet Aucock
abstract: The University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums have been preserving and making our PhD theses accessible since they were introduced in 1917. Since 2007 theses have been required to be submitted in both print and electronic form, the electronic files being used to make full text theses digitally available on our institutional repository https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/. There have been aspirations for progressing to ‘electronic only’ thesis deposit since 20081, but this was held back by a lack of digital preservation support and infrastructure. However, during the COVID pandemic many students were only able to submit an electronic copy of their thesis and print submission was temporarily suspended – forcing a temporary move to e-only thesis deposit. This move to ‘e-only’ thesis deposit became business as usual in March 2022, pushed by various stakeholders and supported by changes to governance, training, and technical solutions.<br />This poster explores the emerging good practice, lessons learned, and future steps for preserving electronic theses using the University of St Andrews as a case study in ensuring that these vital scholarly outputs have integrity, are accessible, and can be used by future generations.
keywords: theses open access etd pdf