Legal Information Preservation Alliance
Strategic Plan Outline
06/20/06 final draft
Mission:
The mission of the Legal Information Preservation Alliance [LIPA] is to provide the
leadership, the necessary organizational framework, and the professional commitment
necessary to preserve vital paper and electronic legal information by defining objectives,
developing and/or adopting appropriate standards and models, creating networks, and
fostering financial and political support for long term stability.
Introduction:
LIPA members are concerned about the preservation of both print and born digital
materials – this plan applies to both. The focus of the strategic plan is education,
advocacy, collaboration and coordination.
The LIPA Strategic Planning Committee examined the various actions necessary for
LIPA to carry out its mission to provide leadership in the preservation of electronic and
print legal information. The recommendations in the following are organized by topic
rather than in priority order, but the Committee recommends the following as the initial
priorities of LIPA:
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Hire an executive director
Establish a stable funding source and membership base
Join/contract with an existing project to begin preserving born digital information
Update the LIPA web page to be an educational resource
Continue to advocate for regional repositories and dark archives for print
materials
I.
Governance
A.
Adopt position description for executive director.
B.
Hire executive director who works under the supervision of the executive
committee.
C.
Explore potential for establishing LIPA as a non-profit corporation, within the
parameters permitted for the level of advocacy we wish to undertake.
D.
Maintain status independent of American Association of Law Libraries.
E.
Explore other potential organizational models for LIPA.
II.
Funding
A.
Implement newly adopted membership dues structure.
B.
Explore in kind contribution from AALL (e.g., office space in Chicago or
Washington, D.C.).
C.
Explore options for grants.
III.
Membership
A.
Build largest possible membership base to create financial viability and strength
for advocacy; encourage members to commit resources for three years.
B.
Develop recruitment strategy that includes soliciting memberships from all
academic law libraries, all state law libraries, major law firm libraries, and other
significant law libraries.
C.
Strengthen connections with the Canadian Association of Law
Libraries/Association Canadienne des Bibliotheques de Droit as they develop
their own preservation strategic plan.
D.
Expand recruitment efforts to include non-law libraries, e.g. large research
libraries at institutions without law schools, state libraries, etc.
IV.
Preservation Activities
A.
Create a pilot project to preserve born digital materials.
B.
1.
Identify a list of critical born digital resources.
2.
Analyze existing projects/services that preserve or provide assistance for
digital preservation (e.g. OCLC, LOCKKS, Portico, Ithaka).
3.
Join or contract with one of these services to preserve the identified list of
born digital resources.
Advocate for the establishment of regional print repositories.
1.
Identify entities in the short term that can preserve print copies while we
develop long term solutions
C.
2.
Establish mechanisms to identify who is going to keep last remaining print
copies of identified materials.
3.
Establish mechanisms to insure the long term stability of archives.
4.
Take advantage of existing organizations such as LLMC.
Encourage establishment of dark or gray archives for print materials.
1.
Identify material to preserve.
2.
Establish priorities for material that is being destroyed that are being
replaced by electronic copies.
3.
Identify existing dark or gray archives.
4.
Determine the number of needed dark archives needed and where.
5.
Determine how dark archives should be managed.
V.
Standards
A.
Create or adopt standards or guidelines to determine what needs to be preserved.
B.
1.
Create mechanisms for deciding what needs to be preserved.
2.
Identify and coordinate with other preservation activities.
Adopt technical standards for preservation.
1.
Identify best standards.
2.
Monitor changes in standards.
3.
Monitor state and federal awareness, compliance with preferred standards.
4.
Advocate adoption of best standards.
VI.
Advocacy and Education
A.
Create mechanisms for education about current status of collections and
preservation.
1.
Conduct survey of what is status of print resources in law libraries.
B.
C.
2.
Use the LIPA web page as a centralized resource on preservation,
including who is doing what.
3.
Provide a mechanism so that members creating digital projects can share
this information, avoid duplication of efforts, and insure use of appropriate
standards.
4.
Make the inventory more interactive and user friendly so that it can be
readily updated by members.
5.
Establish a “Call before you throw” campaign.
Identify partners in preservation activities.
1.
Identify current preservation activities and entities beyond those of LIPA
members.
2.
Build relationships with leaders of preservation entities.
Advocate with other interested groups/users of information.
1.
Identify other groups and avenues for educating beyond membership
groups, such as AALS, ABA, Mayflower Group.
2.
Develop programs on preservation to interested groups.
3.
Develop advocacy training to enable LIPA members to advocate on the
local level.
D.
Identify a highly visible champion for our cause to help us make the issue more
widely known.
E.
Develop and advocate standards with publishers/producers to insure continuation
of access to digital information.
VII.
Evaluation of strategic plan and organization
A.
Establish method of continuous evaluation work and success that includes:
1.
Adequate funding
2.
Adequate staff
3.
Establishment of print archives
4.
Usable inventory
5.
Collaboration with other organizations
6.
Educational programs
7.
Coordinated electronic preservation program with publishers and
organizations