Content Guidelines
Blue Skyways is intended to advance statewide library services by providing easy access to non-commercial resources of particular value to the Kansas library community. These include:
- Home pages for libraries, organizations, individuals and communities or community service agencies whose services and/or resources are of distinct relevance to Kansas libraries
- Directories, Internet training resources, and other materials that offer the promise of improving library services statewide
Blue Skyways is a project of the Kansas State Library, funded by public money and staffed by public employees. As such, it is intended to be a balanced information resource, not an advocacy platform or a medium for advertising commercial ventures. A steering committee made up of State Library and University of Kansas Medical Center staff is responsible for making decisions concerning Blue Skyways content.
No resources which contain significant commercial or marketing content will be incorporated into the Blue Skyways system. Resources on Blue Skyways may point to such resources, subject to limitations that may be posed by interpretation of applicable State of Kansas policies. Simple directory listings of commercial agencies, such as a community's Chamber of Commerce might provide, are acceptable. Non-profit organizations hosted on Skyways may include content related to fund-raising activities subject to review of the steering committee.
Guidelines for Document Providers
Documents and resources delivered through Blue Skyways represent not only the author/provider but also the KLNB and the KSL. These documents and resources therefore should have the following characteristics:
- They should be coherent, well-written, logically presented and logically linked. Authors are encouraged to use spell checkers, grammar checkers, style manuals (especially the Chicago Manual of Style), and to have colleagues check their work for accuracy and style.
- They should be intended for the use of some constituency of the Kansas State Library or of the general Kansas library community. They should not be intended for personal use.
- They should not present personal viewpoints and opinions as those of the KLNB or the KSL, nor should they imply official endorsement of particular commercial products or services. When presenting personal opinion or analysis, authors should display or link to the disclaimer: "These are my opinions only; they do not necessarily represent the views of the KLNB or KSL."
- They should use current standards for HTML to assure that they can be read by the majority of browsers. You should consider offering a text-only version of your resource in addition to one containing graphical images.
- When incorporating multimedia features, they should follow the Guidelines for Use of Multimedia Features
- Documents must include the required HTML tags and links as defined in the Blue Skyways publishing template.
- Account holders are limited to 20mb of disk space. Users who have applications that require more than 20mb and feel they meet our content guidelines should e-mail Joshua Motsinger at jmotsinger3@kumc.edu, giving the URL and justification for additional disk space.
The following material will be removed from the server and the author notified of its removal.
- Copyrighted material that appears without a displayed (or linked-to note) that permission has been obtained from the copyright holder.
- Material that the steering committee judges to constitute libel, plagiarism, an illegal activity, misinformation, pornography, or material that incites or advocates violence.
- Links to material that the steering committee judges to be unacceptable, or to materials which violate the above categories, such as links to sites which distribute or contain illegal, pornographic or inappropriate material.
- Material that the steering committee judges to be inaccurate, outdated, or inadequately maintained.
The providers of documents and other Blue Skyways resources ordinarily will be held personally responsible for any legal liability which may be occasioned by failing to follow the guidelines in this policy document.
Document and resource providers should keep copies of their documents and other resources on local hard drives, floppies, or network servers to minimize the risk of loss.
Questions about this document should be addressed to Jeff Hixon at the Kansas State Library. Issues may be brought to the Web Development Team for possible review. Should any policy changes occur, they will be published on Blue Skyways in draft form for review and comment by Blue Skyways developers before incorporation into the official document.
