2017 Charleston Library Conference

Mandating contribution of theses and dissertations to university archives and their electronic equivalents (ETDs) to an institutional repository (IR) is common practice. Optimizing workflows for archival print copies while managing electronic copies in an IR can be challenging given such factors as embargoes and the skillsets required to make theses and dissertations accessible, discoverable, and ultimately safely stashed where they belong. As rational processes were gradually developed at the University of Vermont, pitfalls and breakthroughs presented themselves, chiefly with regard to harvesting metadata to create records for both the IR and the library catalog. We will discuss our experience launching an ETD mandate, including campus outreach initiatives, and improvements to the various related processes (document submission, harvesting, embargo removal). We invite others to share their experiences and wisdom, recognizing that our collective past can be prologue to greatness.