1. Purpose

VText is 魅色天堂’s institutional repository and digital access platform. Its purpose is to collect, describe, preserve, and provide access to selected digital works created by, sponsored by, administered by, or otherwise related to 魅色天堂 and 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections.

VText supports access to university scholarship, electronic theses and dissertations, faculty publications, institutional records, archival materials, special collections, and Community Archives collections created in partnership with local historical societies, cultural organizations, community groups, donors, and other approved partners.

VText is intended to support teaching, research, scholarship, public access, institutional memory, local history, and long-term stewardship of selected digital materials

2. Administrative Responsibility

VText is administered by 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections.

The Archives is responsible for managing repository collections, coordinating submissions, reviewing materials for inclusion, maintaining repository metadata, managing access and embargoes, supporting persistent access, and coordinating preservation actions for staff-mediated archival and special collections materials.

Questions about VText policies, submissions, access, rights, repository records, or collection management should be directed to:

archives@valdosta.edu

3. Scope of Repository Content

VText accepts digital materials that support the teaching, research, administrative, historical, cultural, or community documentation mission of 魅色天堂 and 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections.

Eligible content may include, but is not limited to:

  • Electronic theses and dissertations
  • Faculty and staff publications
  • Student scholarship submitted through approved workflows
  • University publications and institutional records
  • Digitized archival and special collections materials
  • Born-digital archival and special collections materials
  • Community Archives collections created in partnership with local historical societies, cultural organizations, community groups, donors, or other approved external partners
  • Local and regional history materials that support the collecting mission of 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections
  • Selected digital exhibits, projects, or collections sponsored by 魅色天堂 units or approved community partners
  • Other materials approved by 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections

VText serves both as an institutional repository for 魅色天堂 and as a public access platform for selected archival, special collections, and Community Archives materials administered or approved by the Archives.

The Archives reserves the right to determine whether materials are appropriate for inclusion in VText. Acceptance into VText may depend on collection scope, rights status, technical suitability, preservation needs, available staff capacity, donor restrictions, and alignment with the repository’s mission.

4. Collection Structure

VText uses a repository structure based on communities, collections, and items.

Collections are established and managed by 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections, sometimes in coordination with academic departments, administrative units, faculty, local historical societies, community organizations, donors, or other approved partners.

Materials submitted to a collection must be consistent with the purpose, scope, and access conditions of that collection.

The Archives may create, rename, reorganize, merge, suppress, or retire collections when needed for repository management, discovery, preservation, or administrative purposes.

5. Submission and Deposit

Most VText deposits are staff-mediated by 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections.

Direct submission may be allowed for approved users and approved collections. Users must receive authorization before submitting materials directly to a VText collection.

Student submissions generally require sponsorship, approval, or mediation through an appropriate faculty member, department, academic program, Graduate School workflow, university office, or Archives-approved process.

Community Archives and external partner materials must be submitted through an approved partnership, donor agreement, project agreement, or Archives-mediated workflow.

All submitted materials must be accompanied by sufficient descriptive, administrative, and rights information to support discovery, access, rights management, and preservation.

The Archives may decline submissions that fall outside the scope of VText, lack sufficient rights documentation, contain unresolved privacy or legal concerns, are technically unsuitable for repository management, or cannot reasonably be supported with available resources.

6. Copyright and Deposit Rights

Copyright owners retain copyright in works submitted to VText unless otherwise stated by law, contract, license, donor agreement, transfer agreement, employment policy, or other governing documentation.

By submitting or authorizing deposit of a work in VText, the copyright owner, depositor, donor, or authorized representative grants 魅色天堂 and VText a non-exclusive right to store, reproduce, preserve, migrate, describe, display, distribute, and provide access to the work for repository, educational, research, preservation, and public access purposes.

This non-exclusive permission does not prevent the copyright owner from using, publishing, licensing, depositing, or distributing the work elsewhere.

Depositors are responsible for confirming that they have the right to submit the materials and grant the necessary permissions for repository access and preservation.

The Archives may require additional documentation for materials involving third-party copyright, donor restrictions, community ownership, unpublished materials, or materials created outside 魅色天堂.

7. Community Archives and External Partner Collections

VText may include Community Archives collections and other externally created or jointly administered collections when they support the collecting mission of 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections.

Community Archives collections may include materials created by or in partnership with local historical societies, cultural organizations, churches, civic groups, schools, community groups, donors, families, local governments, or other approved partners.

Inclusion in VText does not automatically transfer copyright, ownership, or physical custody of original materials unless a separate donor agreement, deed of gift, memorandum of understanding, or other written agreement states otherwise.

The Archives may work with community partners to determine appropriate metadata, rights statements, access conditions, digitization standards, preservation actions, and public presentation of materials.

The Archives reserves the right to decline, restrict, remove, or revise access to Community Archives materials when required by rights concerns, privacy issues, donor agreements, cultural sensitivity, technical limitations, or repository scope.

8. Access and Embargoes

VText is intended to support public access whenever possible.

Access restrictions may be applied when required by copyright, privacy, donor agreement, institutional policy, academic policy, embargo request, legal requirement, cultural sensitivity, or other administrative reason.

Embargoes may be used for electronic theses and dissertations, faculty publications, or other approved content when delayed public access is appropriate.

Access options may include:

  • Public access
  • Public access after an approved embargo period
  • 魅色天堂-only access, when technically and administratively supported
  • Restricted access for a specific class, project, group, or authorized user community, when technically and administratively supported
  • Suppressed or mediated access when public access is not appropriate

When files are restricted or embargoed, item-level metadata may remain publicly visible unless there is a specific legal, privacy, donor, or administrative reason to suppress the metadata.

The Archives may modify access conditions when necessary to comply with legal requirements, donor agreements, rights concerns, privacy concerns, preservation needs, or institutional policy.

9. File Formats and Technical Requirements

VText provides access to digital files in formats suitable for discovery and use.

For access copies of textual documents, PDF/A is the preferred format when practical.

Other formats may be accepted depending on the collection, material type, technical requirements, repository support, preservation needs, and intended use.

For staff-mediated archival and special collections materials, master and access copies may be created according to Archives digitization and digital preservation workflows.

The Archives may create derivative files, access copies, thumbnails, transcripts, OCR text, metadata files, or other supporting files as needed for access, discovery, preservation, or repository management.

The Archives may decline or request replacement of files that are corrupt, incomplete, password-protected, infected with malware, technically unsuitable, or otherwise difficult to manage in the repository.

10. Metadata

VText uses descriptive, administrative, technical, structural, and rights metadata to support discovery, access, management, and preservation.

Required metadata may vary by collection, material type, workflow, or repository requirement.

The Archives may edit, normalize, enhance, migrate, or correct metadata to improve discovery, consistency, rights management, accessibility, preservation, and long-term repository maintenance.

Metadata may include, but is not limited to:

  • Title
  • Creator
  • Contributor
  • Date
  • Description
  • Subject terms or keywords
  • Collection information
  • Rights statements
  • Persistent identifiers
  • Local identifiers
  • File and format information
  • Access or restriction notes
  • Donor, source, or provenance information when appropriate

The Archives may use controlled vocabularies, local authority files, standardized name forms, subject headings, geographic terms, and other metadata standards when appropriate.

11. Preservation and Persistent Access

VText supports long-term access to repository materials by maintaining repository records, descriptive metadata, and persistent Handle links.

魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections makes reasonable efforts to ensure that VText Handle permalinks remain valid indefinitely.

Preservation support in VText exists at more than one level.

For repository materials generally, VText supports persistent access, repository metadata, file management, and continued availability of deposited content when technically and administratively feasible.

For staff-mediated archival records, special collections, and selected digital collections, the Archives creates or manages master and access copies and backs them up to the Archives’ digital preservation system for indefinite long-term preservation.

VText does not guarantee the permanent preservation of every submitted file in every format. Preservation support may vary based on submission method, collection type, file format, rights status, technical suitability, preservation value, and available infrastructure.

The Archives may normalize, migrate, duplicate, validate, repair, or replace files when needed to support access or preservation.

12. Withdrawal, Takedown, and Correction

魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections may remove, restrict, replace, suppress, or correct repository content when appropriate.

Reasons may include, but are not limited to:

  • Copyright claims
  • Privacy concerns
  • FERPA or other legal restrictions
  • Donor restrictions
  • Sensitive or confidential information
  • Cultural sensitivity concerns
  • Factual or descriptive errors
  • Duplicate or mistaken deposits
  • Corrupt or defective files
  • Preservation or technical issues
  • Replacement by a corrected or updated version
  • Institutional or administrative requirements
  • Materials later determined to be outside the scope of VText

When content is withdrawn, VText may retain a metadata record or tombstone page when appropriate to preserve the scholarly, institutional, or archival record.

Requests for takedown, correction, restriction, or review should be directed to:

archives@valdosta.edu

13. Privacy and Sensitive Information

Materials containing private, confidential, legally restricted, or sensitive information may be restricted, redacted, embargoed, mediated, or excluded from VText.

Sensitive information may include, but is not limited to:

  • Personally identifiable information
  • Student education records
  • Protected or confidential institutional records
  • Restricted donor information
  • Unpublished personal materials
  • Culturally sensitive materials
  • Materials subject to contractual or legal restrictions

The Archives may review materials for privacy, rights, access, and sensitivity concerns before or after deposit.

The Archives may restrict or remove materials when necessary to protect privacy, comply with law or policy, honor donor agreements, or uphold professional archival practice.

14. Accessibility

The Archives seeks to support access to VText materials for a broad range of users.

When practical, staff-mediated deposits may include accessibility-supporting features such as OCR text, descriptive metadata, transcripts, captions, structured documents, or accessible PDF files.

The level of accessibility support may vary depending on the source material, format, available tools, staff capacity, and technical limitations.

15. Batch Deposits

Batch deposits may be supported for approved collections or projects.

Batch submissions require coordination with 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections and may require additional preparation, metadata review, file normalization, technical processing, rights review, or scheduling.

The Archives may require batch deposit projects to follow specific file naming, metadata, folder structure, format, and quality control requirements.

16. Roles and Responsibilities

魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections is responsible for administering VText, managing repository collections, reviewing deposits, maintaining metadata, coordinating access restrictions, and supporting preservation workflows for staff-mediated archival and special collections materials.

Depositors, donors, faculty sponsors, departments, community partners, and other contributors are responsible for providing accurate information, confirming submission authority, identifying known rights or access restrictions, and supplying appropriate documentation when requested.

Users of VText are responsible for complying with copyright law, license terms, rights statements, citation expectations, and any access conditions associated with repository materials.

17. Policy Review

This policy should be reviewed periodically by 魅色天堂 Archives and Special Collections and updated when repository systems, institutional practices, legal requirements, access workflows, or preservation workflows materially change.

Recommended review cycle: every three years, or sooner if repository administration, technology, legal requirements, or institutional policy changes.

18. Historical Note

This policy updates and consolidates earlier VText policy documents, including prior submissions, collections, and copyright/licensing policies developed during the early period of the repository.

Earlier VText policy documents remain useful as historical documentation of the repository’s development. Where current practice differs from earlier documents, this policy supersedes those earlier documents.