This is necessary in order to ensure that the repository can recognize when it is necessary to execute those plans.

Administrative policies, procedures, protocols, requirements; budgets and financial analysis documents; fiscal calendars; business plan(s); any evidence of active monitoring and preparedness.

The management of a repository should have formal procedures in place to periodically check on the viability of the repository. This periodic check should be used to determine if, or when, to execute the repository’s formal succession plan, contingency plans, and/or escrow arrangements.

Academic Preservation Trust Succession Policy

Academic Preservation Trust Succession Policy The Succession policy outlines the terms under which the APTrust dissolves or a Sustaining Member takes over managing their content, and the processes involved. It dictates that “The APTrust Governing Board MUST review the financial health of the organization twice per year to ensure that the organization has enough in reserve to maintain good financial health and/ or to ensure an adequate reserve exists to meet succession needs should the organization decide to dissolve.”

Financial Sustainability and Business Planning

Financial Sustainability and Business Planning outlines the business, financial, and service principles for APTrust, including a commitment to diversity and openness. Links to the Budget Process are included, and finally an overview of all Financial Practices and Procedures. This includes audits, in which “the University Library’s financial procedures are subject to audit review on multi-year cycles by the University of Virginia’s auditors and periodically by the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Auditor of Public Accounts.”

Governance Manual

The APTrust Governance Manual dictates how and when a meeting might take place — this would be relevant if a meeting was necessary to determine/execute succession plans, etc. It also states that the budget is subject to audit by UVA auditors. As noted elsewhere, succession procedures are also listed here. Manual also dictates roles and responsibilities of the Board, which includes:

• establishes a plan for the sustainability of APTrust
• provides oversight for the APTrust budget and finances, including the majority-vote approval of APTrust services and of membership and services fees

Budgets are reviewed each year at the annual fall meeting.

Sustaining Member: How Deposits Work

The APTrust How Deposits Works guideline outlines costs and procedures when payments are not made:

Costs, Storage Allocations and Termination of Service

• For a specific listing of current costs and services see APTrust Services and Fees List.
• If the Depositor fails to pay any invoice when due, the Depositor’s account will be classified as “unpaid,” and the APTrust staff will contact the Depositor using contact information previously submitted by the Depositor.
• Unless payment is received or other arrangements are made, APTrust services to the Depositor will terminate 60 days after the account is designated “unpaid.” The matter will then be referred to the Governing Board to determine what will happen to the Deposited Content. The Governing Board will consider the nature of the Deposited Content and, if no more appropriate option emerges, may order its deletion from the APTrust preservation storage environment.
• A Depositor may terminate preservation storage services by notifying the APTrust in writing by four months in advance of the termination effective date. Service will continue to that date, and the Depositor will have until that date to retrieve its Deposited Content from the APTrust storage environment, unless both parties have previously agreed to other arrangements. If there is no such agreement, a Depositor’s content will be deleted from the APTrust’s storage environment on the termination effective date.
• In the event of either a Depositor’s failure to pay or a Depositor’s election to terminate service as described above, the Depositor will have the option to establish a direct relationship with the third-party storage provider with whom the APTrust stored the Depositor’s data. Details of how the Depositor can establish the direct relationship and take over technical management of the deposited data appear in the latest APTrust Succession Policy.

20 Cost Questions

Finally, the APTrust Answers to Cost Questions (suggested by the MetaArchive Cooperative in Spring 2015) provides some additional information regarding the financial environment.