Digital Preservation Policy - TEMPLATE
[Your Institution]
[Date]

Rationale: 
This is the “why” of having a digital preservation program and should include portions of your mission, how the program relates to it, and the importance of digital preservation to the ongoing success of digital collections and archives.

Mission: 
Why do you preserve digital content?

Audience: 
For whom do you preserve this content? Consider both current and future audiences/patrons.

Relation to Mission:
 How does digital preservation work fit into the mission of the larger organization in which you work? (if applicable)

Guiding Principles: 
Choose and edit some of these, or create your own. A list of the main principles guiding your activities
 
●	Standards-Based: Comply with the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model standard and conform to certification requirements for ISO Standard 16363 for Trusted Digital Repositories.
●	High Quality Metadata: Capture and maintain high quality and useful metadata for all preserved digital content.
●	Technically Robust: Commit to an reliable and scalable digital archive focusing on open source technologies.
●	Authentic: Maintain local procedures to meet archival requirements pertaining to authenticity and integrity of content (provenance; chain of custody; etc.).
●	Community-Minded and Collaborative: Adhere to prevailing community standards for preserving access to digital content of long-term value and contribute back to that community when possible. Participate in consortial and collaborative digital preservation solutions when they are a good use of Libraries resources.
●	Up-to-Date: Document policies and procedures openly and consistently.
●	System Management and Feasibility: Consider the preservation implications of any systems designed or implemented to manage digital content and allocate adequate resources and infrastructure for sustained digital preservation.
●	Digital Storage Maintenance and Security: Maintain hardware and software -- as well as storage media --  containing archival content in keeping with prevailing best practices, including adherence to environmental standards, quality control specifications, and security requirements.
●	Security and Preparedness: Establish adequate and secure backup and disaster recovery safeguards and seek to monitor threats to the accessibility of digital content.
●	Legal Compliance: Comply with intellectual property, copyright, and ownership rights for preservation of and access to all content.
●	Engage in Partnerships:  Partner with parties within the institution and external to the institution to support the goals of the Digital Preservation Policy, to further develop our digital preservation system, and to serve the collective desire to preserve digital content.

Scope:
This section should describe “what” the department/program does, and should focus on collection development strategies, audience, and collaboration.

Collection Development Priorities: 
What priorities drive the selection of materials and content to be preserved?

Materials Preserved:
  Some Options (perhaps you have others as well)
●	Born-digital materials
●	Digitized materials (not available in analog)
●	Digitized materials (available in analog)

Types of Content Preserved: 
 Some Options (perhaps you have others as well)

●	Licensed resources
●	University Related Scholarly Content
●	Electronic Theses and Dissertations (including accompanying materials)
●	Archival Material
●	Library-owned, managed or produced digital resources
●	Digital reproductions not held by the institution
Roles and Responsibilities:
This section should describe “what” the department/program does, and should focus on collection development strategies, audience, and collaboration.

What are the roles and responsibilities of individual positions involved in the carrying out of digital preservation activities?

Collaborators: 
List other departments, programs, and/or positions with which your program works in the fulfillment of digital preservation activities, as well as the nature of the relationship with that respective entity.