True to its roots in a Land Grant University, the CTDA sees its mission is to educate its members about digital preservation and access beyond merely providing preservation services. Rather than imposing extensive rules and high barriers to participation, the CTDA works collaboratively with its members, who have highly variable knowledge and resources, to understand the principles of digital preservation in order to make good stewardship decisions about their digital assets. This means that their content is both preserved and useful in the networked world. We don’t explicitly introduce preservation concepts as requirements for participation, but implicitly weave these principles into our training and tools. We will use examples of our activities and those of some of our members to illustrate how preservation principles are embodied in the work we all do, and how we listen to our members to develop tools and services that meet their use needs and the requirements of digital preservation and access.
