While every attempt should be made to use plain and accessible language in your policy, it is likely to be difficult to completely avoid community-specific terminology and usages which may not be obvious to the non-specialist. A glossary can therefore be a helpful addition. In developing this, you should consider the following:

• Don’t re-invent the wheel: there are a number of excellent existing glossaries for digital preservation which you can re-use. In particular, the DPC's Digital Preservation Handbook includes a comprehensive glossary.

• Be selective: Limit your glossary to the key terms and concepts used in the policy, rather than attempting to cover every aspect of the subject.

• Try to use plain and accessible language in your glossary definitions. You don’t want your readers to have to look up terms you have used in your glossary definitions in order to understand them!

• Consider whether your glossary would be better placed at the end of your policy document or at the start. Though many people may expect to find it at the end of the document, the benefit of putting it nearer the beginning is that readers will have key terms defined before they encounter them.

• If you only have a handful of words you need to define, consider whether it would be better to define these within the text (where a term first appears) or as a footnote. It may be that a glossary section is not needed.

Example policy statements

Wellcome Collection Digital Preservation Policy 2019–2021 (2019) - this policy includes a section on page 4 called ‘Definitions of terms used in this policy’, just after defining policy scope. It defines some key digital preservation terms used in the policy as well as some of the specific tools used at the Wellcome Collection.

Archaeology Data Services Digital Preservation Policy (2022) - this policy includes a one-page glossary table at the start of the document which includes brief definitions of key terms and acronyms used within the policy.

Cambridge University Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (2021) - this policy includes a two-page glossary at the end of the document which includes longer definitions of key terms along with the source of those definitions.

A digital preservation policy doesn’t exist in isolation, it should sit within a wider landscape of strategy, policy and procedure. This is particularly the case for organizations that manage hybrid collections (with both physical and digital elements) or those with policies relating to information management or information security.

Referencing related documents is a helpful way of acknowledging their presence and relevance, whilst ensuring that your policy is concise and focused on digital preservation (not duplicating information that can be found elsewhere).

Ensure that the key relevant documents are signposted, but know where to draw the line. A good candidate for inclusion will be a related document that would in turn benefit from linking back to the digital preservation policy. Making this section too long may decrease its usefulness.

If listing several documents under this section you may want to include some order in the list, ensuring that the most important documents are highlighted first.

Where related documents are available online, include links to help readers of your policy locate them easily.

Example policy statements

British Geological Survey Digital Preservation Policy (2020) - the 'relationship to other policies and documents' section links to a range of policy, strategy and operating procedures.

Archaeology Data Service Preservation Policy (2022) - the 'supporting documents' section of this policy is quite lengthy, but includes both policy and procedural documentation from the ADS itself as well as it's host organization, the University of York.

Sustainability in digital preservation policy tends to focus on two specific angles - firstly the sustainability of the digital preservation service itself and secondly, wider sustainability issues such as the impact of our digital preservation activities on the environment. Sometimes these issues are discussed under one heading in a sustainbility section of the preservation policy and at other times they are addressed under separate headings.

One way of addressing sustainability is including within your policy a recognition that not all preserved content needs to be treated the same. There can be substantial benefits in setting out a framework within which the highest standard of preservation may only be appropriate for content of the highest value. Doing so ensures that (perhaps limited) resources are asigned where they are needed most. The Levels of Preservation Commitment approach was developed by Nancy McGovern and Kari Smith and directly mentions the benefits with regard to enabling digital preservation programs to maximise their resources. Although it doesn't directly mention impacts relating to environmental sustainability, adopting a model such as this certainly seems to support the paradigm shift the community is encouraged to adopt in 'Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation' by Keith Pendergrass, Walker Sampson, Tessa Walsh and Laura Alagna. Examples of levels of preservation commitment being used within preservation policies are listed below:

• Penn State University Libraries Policy UL-AD19 Digital Preservation Policy (2021) - This policy states that due to limited library resources and the nature of digital content, they cannot digitally preserve everything they acquire or create. Digital content will be assigned a Level of Digital Preservation Commitment which will reflect the value of the content and will inform both the preservation actions and the number of copies stored. There is much more detail on the specifics of this in the policy itself.

• Northwestern Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (undated) - This policy describes the institutions practice of assigning different “levels” to preserved content. Each Level includes selection criteria and designated preservation actions conducted on the content. The policy notes that assigning Levels helps scale, sustain, and provide flexibility for digital preservation activities, and the approach is used to conduct ethical digital preservation while working within the limitations of available resources and technological capabilities. As above, there is much more detail on the specifics within the policy document.

Service sustainability

This section describes what sources of funding are in place to deliver on the policy, and how issues of resourcing and efficiency will impact on the overall digital preservation picture.

Funding has long been recognized as a challenge for digital preservation as it represents the kind of open-ended commitment that is difficult to justify. It is a complicated question and a variety of tools (https://www.curationexchange.org/) exist to help estimate the costs and to help make the case for the investment. While it is useful to have that information to hand in the development of a digital preservation programme it is not necessary to include a detailed costing in the policy.

Increasingly agencies may be required to consider and relate policy to broader Sustainable Development Goals (i.e., reference to environmental and other dimensions of sustainability).

Points to consider:

• There are different business models for funding digital preservation, such as charging for access, charging for deposit, or ongoing revenue. The pros and cons of these models, as well as the cost calculations, needn’t be represented in the policy but may be required as a supplement to ensure the policy is adopted.

• Experience in digital preservation has been that long-term revenue funding is ultimately preferable to short-term project funding.

• The largest cost for digital preservation will be staff costs, whether in-house or outsourced, so there is a close link between resourcing and the skills that the policy will require. The rapid churn of technology means that the maintenance of skills will also need to be funded.

• It can be hard to secure support for open-ended commitments, so it might be worth expressing the funding in terms of the duration of the policy, including implicit or explicit reference to the review cycle of the policy.

• Digital preservation is ready made for collaboration, producing economies of scale and scope which impact on sustainability.

• Reference any succession plans that are in place for your digital content. Consider what would happen if your organization or department was no longer in existence – who would look after your content?

Environmental sustainability

Discussions around the carbon costs of our digital preservation processes and procedures and wider environmental issues are being discussed with increasing frequency in the digital preservation community. See for example this list of resources from the DPC website. 

With this increase in awareness of the issues and the potential impacts of our work, a small number of organizations have started to incorporate statements about environmental sustainability into their digital preservation policies. For other organizations, it may be that an organization-wide environmental policy exists and is referenced in the 'related documents' section of the policy.

Example policy statements

Archaeology Data Service

Digital Repository of Ireland

National Library of Scotland

The Postal Museum

Northwestern Libraries

British Geological Survey

The standards and models section articulates the organization’s commitment to following good practice. It lists the specific standards/models which the organization aims to follow. Not all digital preservation policies will reference the standards and models being employed in the process of preservation, but there may be reasons to explicitly include them. Consider for example:

• Is your policy directed towards a specific type of user who may require adherence to particular standards or models?

• Have you recently achieved a particular certification or implemented a standard or model that you think is important to share with the audience(s) of this policy?

• Is it important to note your adherence to a standard or model in order to ensure compliance with other policies, legal requirements, funder requirements, etc.?

The list of standards/models which support digital preservation are potentially endless, and it is not generally necessary to list every standard and model which may be relevant. Always think critically about why you are noting standards/models in your policy – include them for a reason and (if possible) state that reason in the policy. Try not to make false claims about which standards you use or comply with; unless you are certain you are fully compliant with a standard, it is better to state that your digital preservation work is guided or informed by a certain standard, or that you are actively working towards compliance.

Examples of standards and models which could be included in the policy:

• Archival or preservation models (e.g. OAIS, DCC Curation Lifecycle Model).

• Certification standards (e.g. CoreTrustSeal, ISO16363).

• Maturity models and tools for self-assessment (e.g. DPC's Rapid Assessment Model, NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation, Levels of Born Digital Access, DPC's Competency Audit Toolkit).

• Metadata standards (e.g. PREMIS, Dublin Core, ISAD(G)).

• Vocabularies (e.g. Library of Congress subjects).

• Data models (e.g. Portland, OCFL).

An alternative approach is to simply state an intention to follow relevant standards/models and good practice as an underpinning policy principle (see Policy Principles section).

Example policy statements

Digital Repository of Ireland

University of Sussex

National Archives of Australia

British Geological Survey

For a policy to be effective, roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined and agreed. Responsibilities should cover both the governance and the implementation of the policy, so may include internal staff and external users and service providers. As a minimum, responsibilities for ownership, oversight and escalation, implementation, and adherence to the policy should be included. In smaller organizations, individual staff may play multiple roles.

Roles and responsibilities should not only be defined, but also agreed and communicated. They should be realistic and achievable. The organization should ensure that staff have the appropriate skills and experience to undertake their defined roles and this should be reflected within relevant job descriptions for posts and/or terms of reference for groups.

Avoid referring to individuals by name within your policy since this information quickly goes out of date. Instead, to enable proper succession planning, allocate responsibilities to specific role titles, teams or groups within your organization.

Some organizations may find it useful to organize their roles and responsibilities using a RACI matrix. The RACI matrix defines responsibilities which fall into the following four areas:

• Responsible: the role(s)/groups/suppliers who are responsible for adhering to the policy and for the practical implementation of it in day-to-day work.

• Accountable: the role(s)/group(s) who are held accountable for the success of the policy and who provide high-level oversight (generally more senior roles or management groups within the organization).

• Consulted: the role(s)/group(s) who provide input on issues or new processes relating to digital preservation.

• Informed: the role(s)/group(s) who should be aware of the policy, but do not work directly with digital content in scope of the policy.

Example policy statements

When done well, this section of a digital preservation policy is typically quite long. Good examples include:

The Postal Museum Digital Preservation Policy (2022) is an excellent and detailed example of the use of a RACI matrix. 

Cambridge University Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (2021) formats this section with the use of tables, looking first at who has strategic oversight of the policy and next at operational roles and responsibilities. 

University of Glasgow Digital Preservation Policy (2020) takes each team or department in turn and lists their responsibilities (for example Library, Records and Information Management and IT Services). It then assigns certain responsibilities to all staff (as content creators). 

Principles are high-level ideas or rules that guide decisions or behaviours. The principles section provides the agreed framework and directions for how an organization approaches digital preservation in a consistent way. The principles should reflect the key commitments and values which inform the organization’s preservation objectives.

The purpose of the principles section of the policy is to guide and support staff to make decisions and to develop lower-level procedures. Policy principles should be clear and easy to understand and stand the test of time. Avoid writing principles which mandate the use of specific software or file formats as this information will quickly become out-of-date. This type of detail can instead be added to a separate procedures or guidance document.

There is much variation in how different organizations approach this section of their preservation policy and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Some keep this section relatively brief, focusing on a very small number of key statements (see for example the University of Warwick who have six brief digital preservation principles), others are more expansive and cover a much broader range (see for example Bodleian Libraries who detail a much more extensive list of principles). There is also much variation in the topics covered under policy principles. Whereas some organizations keep much of the content of the preservation policy under this 'principles' heading, others pull out specific topics to sit under their own top level heading within the policy. Viewing a number of different preservation policies may be helpful in seeing some of the different approaches.

The principles section is often the longest part of the policy and is perhaps also the section that will require most thought. You may find it helpful to include subheadings within this section to make it easier for readers to find information.

Introductory Statement of Principles

Some organizations begin the principles section with an introductory statement that provides an overview of their approach to digital preservation and the key values that are prioritized in this principles section.

This could be a general summary statement, or could highlight key values that are prioritized by your policy principles. You could think in terms of organizational strategy, or your main stakeholders or user community when you choose these top level values. Policies sometimes include reference to broader principles such as trust, transparency and adherence to good practice in this introductory statement.

Example policy statements

Bodleian Libraries

Wellcome Collection

Specific points of principle

The following sections are examples of topics or subheadings that you might cover in the principles section of your policy. These are based on the eleven sections of DPC's Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM). The intention of this categorization is to provide a logical grouping of related principles whilst ensuring coverage across the range of potential areas that should be considered - use these headings within your policy document if they are helpful to you, or choose an alternative structure as appropriate. Some organizations structure their principles under headings and others adopt a simple bulleted list.

• Organizational viability

• Policy and strategy

• Legal and ethical

• IT capability

• Continuous improvement

• Community

• Acquisition, transfer and ingest

• Bitstream preservation

• Content preservation

• Metadata management

• Discovery and access

Included under each of these sections are topics and example principles from a variety of existing digital preservation policies. This isn’t an exhaustive list, and it’s important to consider which specific areas are relevant to your organization and ensure that the wording is adapted to your own circumstances.

This section states the scope of the policy in terms of the organizational context and the digital content to be preserved. This may include setting the scope as digital content created by a particular institution or organization, or a department or division within that organization. It may also be limited to particular collections, time periods, or types of digital objects (e.g. research data, digitized images, audio-visual material, line-of-business data, or web archives). The scope may be defined by a legal requirement on the institution (such as public records legislation or health and safety regulations), by organizational mandate (such as the mission of a collecting institution), or be implied through strategic and contractual relationships (such as a requirement of a funder, or the supply of a service or product with a long life-cycle). For organizations with collecting policies, it will be important to align this section with those parts of the policies relevant to the digital content within scope.

Tips for writing the scope of a policy:

• be as specific as possible as to what is in scope.

• for clarity, it can be useful to also identify what is out of scope.

• if your digital collections are continuing to grow, ensure that the scope section covers content which is not yet in your possession, but which is likely to be transferred to you in the lifetime of the policy.

• you may also wish to include metadata and documentation (that describes content in the collection) in the scope of the policy - this will need preserving for the long term too.

Example policy statements

University of Warwick

British Geological Survey

University of Bristol

Any policy should clearly explain how it supports the overarching strategy or mandate of the organization. If your organization has a mission statement or defined strategic objectives you may find it useful to establish the policy within the context of this overarching statement, particularly if this helps to justify the preservation of digital content. A mission statement or organizational strategy document usually sets out the organization’s main drivers or motivators, so it is useful to help identify what these are and explain how digital preservation supports this mission.

Organizations preserve digital content for different reasons – this may form part of a statutory role (such as legal deposit), to comply with legal or regulatory requirements, or to support organizational or business functions. The policy should therefore briefly explain the drivers which underpin this policy including, where it may not be obvious, why they necessitate digital preservation. It may be helpful to clarify whether this mandate is obligatory or discretionary.

Mission statements are generally one, or a maximum of two, sentences, so this section of your policy may not need to be much longer. More detailed examples do exist and are also worth looking at. Note in particular:

• Georgia Tech Library Preservation Policy (2022) - under a 'Mandate and Strategy Alignment' heading, this policy discusses both the mandate and mission of the Library and the values and strategy of the Institute as a whole.

• British Geological Survey Digital Preservation Policy (2020) - this detailed example works through the strategic goals of the organization in turn.

Note that there is much variation in how organizations structure this information. It may not always sit under its own heading for example. As it provides important context to the policy and the preservation work that it describes, it is recommended it is included in every policy, ideally within one of the introductory sections of the document.

Example policy statements

Library and Archives Canada

Bodleian Libraries

 Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research

The statement of purpose should succinctly explain why this policy has been developed and what it aims to accomplish. It's an opportunity to inform the policy reader about what digital preservation is, how it differs from other processes (such as routine IT backups and digitization) and why it is necessary to have a dedicated policy on it. 

If your preservation policy is being used as a communication or advocacy tool – most likely within an organization new to digital preservation – it may be useful to include a short statement on the preservation risks and/or the benefits of enacting the policy. Detailing preservation risks can help to communicate the need for digital preservation action while detailing benefits can demonstrate the potential value in investing in digital preservation. The Executive Guide on Digital Preservation and Digital Preservation Business Case Toolkit provide extensive guidance on risks and benefits. The 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species may also be referenced if there are specific examples of 'at risk' digital content within your organization that you wish to highlight. Not everyone chooses to go into this level of detail and whether you do so will depend on your organizational context and level of digital preservation maturity.

Another point you may wish to address in this section of the policy is whether the policy reflects current practice or is aspirational. This may not always be obvious from reading a policy document so stating this upfront will ensure there can be no confusion.

Example policy statements

Penn State University

University of Bristol

Library and Archives Canada

University of Nottingham

A long digital preservation policy may benefit from a concise and easily digestible summary. This could support:

• influencing busy senior managers who might not read beyond the first page.

• quickly and succinctly convincing a ‘lay audience’ of the purpose and benefits of the policy.

A summary should:

• use short, concise paragraphs and/or bullet points.

• be written in the same order as the full policy.

• draw out the key aims and benefits of the policy.

There are no hard and fast rules to writing this section of a policy. Ultimately, a summary should always provide the key messages that you want to give to the audience you are aiming it at. These may include some of the following points:

• a brief description of what digital preservation is and what the policy aims to do.

• the opportunities created by digital preservation for the organization, and the risks it can mitigate.

• the target audience, as well as an identification of ownership.

• the context within which the policy sits and other relevant documentation.

• a brief outline of policy principles.

This section may also be called 'Executive Summary' or 'Overview'.

Example policy statements

Penn State University

Bodleian Libraries

Digital Repository of Ireland