Collection Management Policy (Living Refugee Archive and Digital Library)

Background

The University of East London Library and Learning Services: Archives already has a Collections Development Policy in place which outlines our current remit for how we will look to preserve, manage and develop our Archival collections. A copy of this Collection Development Policy is available online and by request.

Our mission statement states:

The Archive seeks to identify, collect and preserve original and unique records that document the history of the University, and its academic interests, and to facilitate their accessibility and to make them available for teaching and research use by staff, students, the academic research community and the wider public.

The Living Refugee Archive and digital library falls within one of our key collection strengths, namely refugee studies, conflict studies and international development. The Living Refugee Archive and digital library will enable access to research materials and a searchable collection of peer-reviewed online materials.

Selecting materials for the Living Refugee Archive

Further details of the actual content coverage for the Living Refugee Archive and digital library are included in the `What is the Living Refugee Archive’ and the `Scope of the Living Refugee Archive Policy’ to follow.

Our criteria for including materials within the Living Refugee Archive and digital archive are detailed as follows:

Collecting Remit Criteria:

  • Archival materials from our own archival collections will be digitised and made available online where there is evidence of historical or research value in the content of the document.       Digitisation for preservation will also be undertaken whereby access to a digital surrogate will help to preserve the life of the physical item.
  • The Living Refugee Archive is open to collecting all types of media including paper, photographs, electronic records and sound records which are judged to be of historical value.
  • Potential materials for the Living Refugee Archive and digital library will be peer-reviewed in order to ensure that it will be of substantive quality to be included within the website.
  • To ensure that the Living Refugee Archive and digital library will be a balanced collection, incorporating materials in a range of formats and reflecting different perspectives from different types of authors (e.g. community publications vs policy documents) and covering different geographic regions.
  • Our main focus will be to maximise the benefit of any collection to the teaching and research needs and for civic engagement purposes beyond the University.
  • Resource capacity, both physical and electronic, will be considered when responding to offers of new materials.
  • Documents which contact sensitive data will not be included in Living Refugee Archive or digital library, as per the requirement of the Date Protection Act.
  • New material will be appraised prior to uploading and items of poor quality or for which the content could be construed as an incitement to violence will not be included.
  • Published materials may be allowed subject to copyright clearance, (see below).

Copyright Clearance

Copyright clearance will be sought for all full-text items included within the Living Refugee Archive and digital library. Where attempts to contact the author has proved unsuccessful, some documents may be made available on a “best endeavour” approach. Where this is undertaken, this will be done with a provision that the document will be taken down should a complaint be lodged.

Linking Policy

We are happy to receive suggestions from users of the Living Refugee Archive and digital library for new content to be added to the website and for requests for reciprocal links to/from their own website. We cannot guarantee that all requests will be accepted and it may take some time for us to respond to your request.

A web form to submit applications is available here: [web form]