Table of Contents

What Are Evergreens at PUL?

Under the new PUL Digital Strategy, Evergreen Initiatives, which have no timeline nor otherwise-dedicated capacity, use the same resources set aside for Small Projects. There are three types of Evergreen Initiatives:

• Those based on a fixed list, potentially in priority order
• Those based on items determined by a set of criteria, e.g., important new acquisitions, important content newly out of copyright, and the Brittle Books program
• Those based on incremental and growing lists, created as the proposer assesses collections or discovers items that match the project’s criteria. This category is essentially a hybrid of the previous two and will be useful for preservation-oriented remediation projects, e.g., the digitization of newspapers, tape, and other fragile media

What are the essential basic criteria for Evergreens at PUL?

Can you check all the boxes for the initiative you are reviewing?

• Timeline: is this project open ended and not dependent on any otherwise dedicated capacity? Is it understood and approved that evergreens are the first to be tabled if sudden priorities arise?

• Rotations: are there enough proposed and approved (primarily or entirely open visibility*) materials to cover up to four monthly Digital Studio rotations per year?

• Metadata: are the materials cataloged in Alma or ASpace with sufficient granularity to support research in the Library Catalog or Finding Aids, or is there an established ephemera project for cataloging the materials?
• Conservation: Are the materials in generally good condition? Has a recurring schedule for batch assessments been established in consultation with Preservation & Conservation?
• Imaging: is the volume of materials proposed sufficient for up to a 4 month rotational digitization queue? Digitization may also be outsourced, but metadata, conservation, and other impacts must also be considered.
• IT: do our existing applications (Figgy, Digital PUL, Library Catalog, Finding Aids, Maps Portal, etc.) currently support the functionality to display the materials in their entirety?
• Public Services: is there staff capacity to page the items for conservation review and digitization?

*Evergreens highlight materials that are primarily, if not entirely, in the public domain unless otherwise noted by the LSC sponsor, primary stakeholder, and approved by DSG.  Examples include: The Papers of Toni Morrison and items in need of digital preservation.

Preparation for the Annual Evergreen Audit

In an effort to mitigate bias, quantify, and document annual prioritizations if/when needed, we would like to pilot implementing a rubric for each approved Evergreen initiative for that fiscal year. In addition to the scoring categories found on this template, we also have provided some basic information including the following:

• Evergreen Initiative title, hyperlinked to Airtable card that includes
• Project description
• Primary Stakeholder(s) & Sponsor
• Status
• Link to Studio Register
• Link to Studio Calendar
• Attachments via Google Drive Folder link
• Summaries from Operations Group(s)
• Collaborative Rubric from Operations Group(s)
• Airtable High Level Overview