Policy Planning from iPres

Policy Planning from iPres. Alice Prael. Blog. November 5, 2015.
     Report on the Policy and Practice Documentation Clinic at iPres organized by Maureen Pennock and Nancy McGovern. SCAPE has a collection of published preservation policies that she is using to create a policy framework. The Policy and Practice Clinic showed the importance of taking the time to create a policy and not trying to do it all at once. Some notes from the post:

• Create a Digital Preservation Principles
• Include key stakeholders when working with the principles document, early and often
• Write what digital preservation actions are happening now
• Start writing a Digital Preservation Plan. Nancy McGovern: A policy is ‘what we do’ and a plan is ‘what we will do.’
• Create Procedure Documents to show how to follow the principles
• Have the key stakeholders decide if the procedures are realistic

Some additional notes on the Policy and Practice Clinic:

• If your institution doesn’t like the word ‘preservation’ then use ‘long term access.’ 
• Do what is needed to get the buy-in from the stakeholders. 
• Make the technology enforce the digital preservation policy for you.
• People are much more likely to perform these preservation tasks if the system doesn’t give them a choice.

More information on iPres here:

Digital Preservation Matters.