Ensuring perpetual access to the state's electronic theses and dissertations is a vital concern, and a full-featured preservation network will be a crucial piece of the Texas ETD Repository.

TDL will coordinate the long-term security of the collection by implementing a state-wide preservation network that will:

• Be redundant and geographically diverse
• Utilize rich preservation metadata based on PREMIS
• Comply with Trusted Digital Repository and OAIS specifications

The ultimate goal is to spread the responsibility for managing and maintaining the Texas ETD Repository over all members of TDL in order to reduce the risk associated with reliance on any one institution’s resources. Submission of materials to the preservation network will be made through the institutional repositories, and storage of those items will be made in multiple and geographically diverse locations. Combined with a rich preservation metadata standard, the preservation network will enable high quality stewardship for these valuable scholarly resources.