Undue Diligence

In March there was a workshop entitled Undue Diligence: Seeking Low-risk Strategies for Making Collections of Unpublished Materials More Accessible at the OCLC San Mateo office.

The seminar concluded with a discussion of what was termed "well-intentioned practice." OCLC staff, with input from speakers and advisors, had drafted a reasonable approach to balancing risk and access when making collections of unpublished materials accessible online. The participants in the seminar discussed and improved the document. Following the meeting, the revised document was shared with the speakers, advisors, participants and a few other experts. More improvements were made. The one-page document offers a practical approach to selecting collections, making decisions, seeking permissions, recording outcomes, establishing policy and working with future donors.

Currently the document is being shared with other organizations in hopes that, with additional endorsement, we'll be able to establish a community of practice based on this approach.

This document is Well-intentioned practice for putting digitized collections of unpublished materials online.