The following section details advice for managing your documentation over time. Documentation is an ongoing practice of maintaining your policies and procedures.
Documentation requires upkeep to keep it current and useful. This maintenance requires consideration when setting up documentation in form and function.
All documentation should include a definition of:
- Stakeholder(s) affected
- Audience for the documentation
- Date it was approved
A documentation review schedule should record:
- Date or frequency of next review date
- Who or what role should review the documents
- Who is tasked to make sure the schedule is maintained
- Date of last revision
The location of documentation should:
- Be accessible by team that has to review
- Be accessible by stakeholder(s) and audience(s) for reference as appropriate
- Provide for a way to easily link related documentation together
Documentation should be preservation-friendly and sustainable. This means ensuring:
- It is not stored on a single computer
- There is away to export from a system if it lives in such an environment
- Final versions are saved in preservation-friendly file formats
- There is a plan to manage revisions and appropriately retire old versions
Having policies in writing and accessible is a key aspect of any sort of library service, and repositories are no exception. Such explicit policies facilitate making decisions consistently, as well as setting patron expectations. In cases of dispute, having a written policy in advance can help resolve matters in a way which feels fair to the parties involved.
While any policies you set must be consistent with those of your organization and the library, there is no one-size-fits all set that can be implemented out of the box. The policies of a repository must reflect the goals of the sponsoring unit and the intended audience, as well as operating within the larger organizational framework. Some policies may be written for an external audience while other policies or procedures are better suited for internal staff of the repository.
Below, you'll find some common policy areas, and the issues that should be addressed within them. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but at the very least should prove a good starting point.
These policies govern who may utilize the content within the repository, and under what (if any) restrictions. (Note, this is distinct from accessibility, covered below.) More discussion of these issues can be found in the Access: Discovery and delivery portion of this handbook.
These policies govern the removal of barriers, intentional or otherwise, that stand between valid users and the content within the repository. (Note, this is distinct from access, covered above.) Note: Repository policy exists within a larger framework of obligations, and need to reflect that framework! More discussion of these issues can be found in the Access: Discovery and delivery portion of this handbook.
These policies govern what material will be included in the repository, how that material is collected, and the means by which it is added to the repository. More discussion of these issues can be found in the Defining repository scope portion of this handbook.
These policies govern the long-term preservation of digital objects contained within and/or delivered by the repository service. More discussion of these issues can be found in the Preservation portion of this handbook.
These policies protect the privacy of all users of repository services. Find out if your repositories abide by default the privacy and confidentiality policies of the Library or the Organization; you may wish to consider policies that provide protections above and beyond those.
These policies govern the inclusion of student works in the repository. While some of these issues are covered in "Collection development and content deposit" above, student works raise special issues, especially around compliance with FERPA.
This policy governs the decision-making process on whether to retain or remove content. This is one of the sparsest areas of policy, as the assumption at some libraries tends to be that once something is added to a repository, it will remain there in perpetuity. But digital collections should be weeded for many of the same reasons that physical collections are, and as such this policy is necessary. If the decision is to retain content, see section on Exit Planning, which deals with migrating content to a new platform.
These policies govern the response to requests to remove material from repositories, or to redact content from those materials. Contacting your copyright expert when crafting these policies, and when responding to specific requests, is advisable. More discussion of these issues can be found in the Rights Management portion of this handbook.
Compose, approve and document:
- access policy
- accessibility policy
- collection development and content deposit policies.
- preservation policy
- privacy policy
- student works policy
- content sunsetting policy
- takedown request policy
This spreadsheet identifies key decisions discussed in the totality of the Repository Principles and Strategies guide that require documentation in either your policies or procedures. It has two sections for each decision:
- Recommended audiences for the decisions by role
- Possible policies where the documentation could reside