Finding the balance: Modelling successful workflows for digital library collections

Abstract

Workflows can be powerful tools for building and sustaining effective communication and efficient processes, especially in large organisations where expertise and responsibility is distributed across numerous departments and divisions. Drawing on the experiences of five practitioners working in academic libraries, this paper presents a set of recommendations for creating and modelling workflows to build and sustain digital library collections. This paper also synthesises some key considerations for successful workflow management, and argues that the creation and use of workflows can help practitioners manage and balance some of the common challenges that organisations and teams face in their efforts to build and sustain well-curated, interoperable, persistent, discoverable and accessible digital collections.