I want to use lightroom to manage my image library, but have the following issue.

I generally shoot in RAW and import into Lightroom to do edits.
Once I'm complete, I export the RAW to JPEG. I then archive the RAW to DVD and delete them...

I want to keep the JPEGs indexed in lightroom. Do I need to reimport them? Will I loose all the ratings and keywords that were added to the RAW files?

Andrew

Lightroom allows you to keep your RAW images on external storage (which can be detached, such as a DVD) and keeps the thumbnails in it's library.

I don't know exactly how its done, but I know LR supports this option - look for it.