Web document management

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

As we move increasingly toward producing Internet-accessible
electronic documents--not just informational pages, but
book-length resources---we are asking ourselves questions about
Web document management, including revisions, updates, edition
statements and so forth.  I have browsed quite a few style and
HTML manuals, and though they are useful as far as they go, I
haven't found documents describing procedures and policies for
maintaining a digital collection, particularly when that collection
consists primarily of booklike documents.

Some of the questions we have raised as we talk these issues
over include: should we save all revisions of a document? If not,
how do we draw the line?  If so, how and where?  Do we archive
every minor change, or do we offer guidelines and instruct
authors to notify us when a document has changed editions? 
What *is* an edition, anyway?  What do we do with older
editions? What are our archival responsibilities?  What
preservation issues should we be alert to?  What else bobs in the
waters just beyond the digital horizon?

My sense is that these are not technical issues, per se, but
procedural and policy issues related to digital  library
management (though our conclusions may benefit from technical
support). Any input here, including recommendations of
resources digital or analog, would be gratefully received. I am
looking less for individual answers, which I suspect we know if
we ask ourselves, than for working management models.  

If you post to me personally, I'll summarize for the list; but if you
would rather continue this rumination in public, that's fine too. 

Karen G. Schneider
Director, US EPA Region 2 Library
schneider.karen at epamail.epa.gov
opinions mine alone