Choose/Create Your Content – Level 1

Selecting your content

Whether you are just starting to think about creating a collection, or you already have digital content in your care, documenting what you are collecting will make it clear what you want to collect and where you will get the content from.  

This will be useful to point to if you are offered a collection that doesn’t fit with the rest of the collections you hold. It will also help you to identify any gaps that you may want to fill. Including where your collections have come from will help with future processing work and give you somewhere to start if you want to collect more records in the future.  

The most common way to document what you collect is by creating a collecting policy. A collecting policy aims to set out your principles and criteria for selecting and acquiring collections. A good policy doesn't need to be too lengthy or detailed, as long the statements in it are clear. 

Next Steps

Creating a more detailed collecting policy will allow you to expand on the type of records you collect, in what format, and why you have made these decisions. The next level will show you what you should be thinking about and how to use your audience to inform the decisions you make about what to collect.