Policy Library – A Resource for All University-wide Policies

The campus recently unveiled the UW-Madison Policy Library, a two-year undertaking that resulted in an authoritative and comprehensive source for campus-wide policies and information about them. University Libraries, represented by Anna Lewis (Co-Director of MERIT) and Bruce Barton (Director of Library Systems and Application Services within the General Library System), lent their unique expertise in content and metadata organization and management, and in search and discovery interfaces to the project.

The decentralized nature of policymaking at UW-Madison caused many issues including outdated, orphaned, or duplicative policies; unreliable searches; difficult publishing; confusion around who was responsible for policies; and no standardized method for numbering or cataloging policies.

Over the past two years, as members of the Policy Library Working Group and the Policy Library Technical Team, Anna and Bruce shared expertise to support the creation of a searchable, web-based policy library that would include all University-level policies.

As the team engaged with stakeholders, created shared definitions and inventoried existing policies, they also evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of utilizing a commercial policy library solution versus creating a homegrown library.

Ultimately, it was decided that the General Library System (GLS), at the leadership of Bruce and his team, would help create a policy library, based on the fact they maintain the Libraries’ own catalog and can offer unique knowledge related to best searching and retrieval practice, the creation of records, database metadata, and categorization. His team also developed and manages the discovery interface.

Lending expertise and unique knowledge, the Libraries were an essential partner in this project and helped address the hurdles in accessing and maintaining policies here at the University. This is just one example of the work Libraries staff are engaged in with partners around the University to solve complex, campus-wide problems and offer solutions that benefit our entire campus community.

So remember, the next time you need to find one of the nearly 900 University policies, check out the Policy Library and enjoy the convenience of one central, up-to-date resource that can be searched by topic or keywords!