An annotated example of a Policy Statement
Annotations to the left point out the Key Elements of an Environmental Policy Statement as described in this guide.
| The Morgan Library Internet Search Printing Policy | |
The Policy.  |
The policy of Morgan Library shall be to limit or eliminate the printing of Internet or similar information searches conducted by patrons in the information technology area or by library faculty in the reference areas. Results of such searches may be saved on magnetic media or saved temporarily as files on the search computer and emailed to the client. During the 98-99 academic year, a survey of the two aforementioned areas estimated 1240 reams of paper, purchased through the Library budget, were wasted. Such waste occurred when patrons or staff printed early results of overly broad searches or printed the entire search sequence while the patron learned the system mechanics. Morgan Library governing board hereby adopts this policy in an effort to conserve valuable resources, improve efficiency of information transfer to clients and to contain discretionary costs within the Library budget. This policy shall be initially implemented in the information technology area and shall apply to all clients who use Library resources to conduct information searches. This policy shall equally apply to the reference information services where professional library staff conduct searches at the request of researchers or other patrons who pay for searches through direct reimbursement or cost transfer from funded projects. Morgan Library must remain a primary resource to all of our clients and implementation of this policy should not discourage interaction of clients with professional staff nor should it dissuade users and patrons from exploiting the resources of Morgan Library. To this end, reference staff shall use individual discretion when performing research and shall print results when, in the opinion of the staff member, delivery of the result in this fashion best serves the client needs. Further, the information technology area shall install dispensers for clients to purchase 3.5 inch magnetic media to save searches. Clients may print LIMITED scope searches of one page or less on the existing information technology print stations. Software will be installed to limit any discrete, incoming print command to the first 72 lines of text (formatted to one page, single spaced). The print server will ignore multiple print commands from the same search stations during the same search. Computer Services may be tasked with this formatting and computer modification to realize limited scope printing. For clients who choose to save searches temporarily on the search computer and email to another location, instructions for so doing shall be clearly posted at all search computers in the technology area. Finally, training sessions on "smart" searching, saving results to magnetic media, and emailing search results to an out-of-library account may be implemented as part of the Back-to-School Training and Orientation Week at the outset of each semester. This policy shall be implemented by the supervisory librarians in Information Technology and References Services and those librarians shall see that all staff are trained to implement this policy no later than the beginning of SP00 semester. Further, these same supervisory librarians shall meet as a team to design and implement an evaluation strategy to assess the following points:
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| Justification for the policy.
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Those to whom the policy applies.
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How the policy is to be implemented. |
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Who is responsible for implementing the policy. |
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How the policy will be evaluated. Guiding principles. |