Christchurch City Libraries Editorial Policy

This page outlines the editorial policy adopted by Christchurch City Libraries.

Duty to online audience

We create and publish a wide range of material from different viewpoints. Information is presented in a fair, balanced and accurate way. We will not deliberately mislead or misinform readers.

We may moderate, edit or remove comments that appear on our websites and blogs. This is done for reasons of balance, fairness, and accuracy.

Our content is focused on Christchurch and Canterbury, documenting and telling stories about our people, our city. We also have an important and ongoing role in documenting Māori experience and pre-European Christchurch as evidenced by Tī Kōuka Whenua.

Te reo Māori

Christchurch City Libraries includes Te reo Māori in its online content in accordance with our bicultural plan, Te Ara Tika.

Plain language

We use and advocate the use of plain language. Plain language is clear, concise, well-structured writing that is focused on the reader, and appropriate to the audience.

Accessibility

In line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2) we make our content accessible to as many people as possible, including those using assistive technologies such as screen-readers.

Content

Content includes anything that has been created by Christchurch City Libraries staff and is available through a Christchurch City Libraries website. We promote and encourage the ongoing use of information resources available at libraries and also create and present high-quality written, audio and video content. Content provided by third party providers is out of the scope of this policy.

Christchurch City Libraries websites are:

Previous sites:

  • http://slc.ac.nz/
  • http://thepulse.org.nz
  • http://library150.com
  • http://cclblog.wordpress.com
  • https://www.flickr.com/photos/thepulseteauaha

Digitised Content

Christchurch City Libraries digitise items that contribute to the telling of stories on a particular topic. We make digitised items available from our website. By digitising items we:

  • Create greater access to some of our heavily used items
  • Highlight items that have become hidden in our archives collection [that may be of interest or value to library customers or the Christchurch community]
  • Conserve items that are too fragile to allow access to the original
  • Create a greater awareness of our Archives collection and Research Room material
  • Highlight our role in maintaining a repository for community heritage material.

[Excerpted from the LIU Digitisation 10 year Plan]

Content management

All content is managed by the Digital Library Web Team. Content may be amended, edited or re-written to ensure it conforms with appropriate style, length and readability for library customers. Decisions regarding style and content rest with the Editor.

Our objectives for content are to:

  • create content and library resources that are relevant to our communities
  • reflect the culture of Christchurch City
  • provide and lead to resources that empower users to discover, connect and play.

The types of content we produce include:

  • Information about library resources — digitised content, services we subscribe to, new titles, reviews, awards, books into film, narrative for digitised content, reader advisories.
  • Information about Christchurch and Canterbury today and in the past.
  • Coverage for community-run events where the event has been identified on our Web Publishing Plan or is related to resources that we provide.
  • Interviews, features, blog posts, reviews, local history and built heritage.
  • Content created using media releases and other publicly available information.
  • Captured images, audio and video.

Where possible, content is linked to other relevant printed or digital resources in the library collection.

The web publishing plan

We create and review original content in line with an annual web publishing plan.

Content Review

We do our best to make information as accurate and relevant as possible, regularly reviewing and making necessary updates and removing out-of-date material.

When moving or deleting pages, we redirect visitors to a new location or to relevant alternative content.

We update the content on our websites regularly, correcting any mistakes.

Linking to other sites

We link to other sites that contain content we believe to be relevant to our customers. 

Linking to a website does not constitute an endorsement of any kind and Christchurch City Libraries does not accept any responsibility for the content or condition of any external links on the site.

Paid advertising

We do not accept paid advertising (including paid editorial content) on our websites.

Images

We use images from our collection to illustrate written content, and regularly capture images of Christchurch and Canterbury to add to our collection for this purpose.
We gather some images from the public and interview subjects and also use copyright-free and purchased stock images.

Copyright

We respect copyright, only using copyright material with permission. We ask our visitors to do the same. Website terms of use.

Newsletters

We offer a subscription newsletter service to keep customers up to date with new resources at the library. We also send out occasional customer newsletters to all members under the terms of the Conditions of Membership. Newsletters contain information about the services and resources that we offer to our customers.

June 2012

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