How can you promote transparency in digital library resource management?

1 Define your policies and standards

One of the first steps to promote transparency in digital library resource management is to define and document your policies and standards for selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, and providing access to digital collections. These policies and standards should reflect your library's mission, vision, values, and goals, as well as the needs and expectations of your users and stakeholders. They should also comply with the relevant legal and ethical frameworks, such as copyright, privacy, data protection, and intellectual property rights. By defining and documenting your policies and standards, you can communicate clearly and consistently how you manage your digital resources and what criteria and principles you follow.

2 Share your metadata and documentation

Metadata and documentation are essential components of digital library resource management, as they describe, identify, structure, and link the digital resources and their related information. Metadata and documentation can also facilitate the discovery, access, use, and reuse of the digital resources by users and other libraries. To promote transparency in digital library resource management, you should share your metadata and documentation openly and widely, using standard formats, schemas, vocabularies, and protocols. This can help you to increase the visibility, interoperability, and compatibility of your digital resources, as well as to demonstrate your quality and reliability.

3 Involve your users and stakeholders

Another way to promote transparency in digital library resource management is to involve your users and stakeholders in the process of selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, and providing access to digital collections. Users and stakeholders can include students, faculty, researchers, staff, alumni, donors, partners, and the general public. By involving them, you can gain insights into their needs, preferences, feedback, and satisfaction, as well as to foster a sense of ownership, participation, and collaboration. You can involve your users and stakeholders by conducting surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, consultations, or co-creation activities, as well as by providing channels for communication, feedback, and complaints.

4 Monitor and evaluate your performance

A final step to promote transparency in digital library resource management is to monitor and evaluate your performance regularly and systematically. Monitoring and evaluation can help you to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of your digital library resource management, as well as to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. You can monitor and evaluate your performance by using indicators, metrics, benchmarks, or standards, such as usage statistics, user satisfaction, quality assurance, cost-benefit analysis, or impact assessment. You should also report and disseminate your results and findings openly and honestly, using various formats and platforms, such as reports, dashboards, newsletters, blogs, or social media.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?