Policies and Procedures

Policy vs. Procedure

• Policy manual describes the why of an operation 
• Procedure manual describes the how of an operation 
• Blueprint of how library functions 

What should policies be? 

• Consistent
• Reflective of objectives and plans
• Flexible
• Distinguished from rules and procedures
• Written 

Advantages of policies 

• Available in same form to all staff 
• In manual
• Online 
• Can be referred to 
• Clarifies any potential misunderstandings 
• Indicative of honesty and integrity 
• Readily disseminated 
• Available to new employees 
• As part of training process 
• Process of written focuses thoughts about policies 
• Generates confidence in leadership and fairness 

Why have a manual? 

• Orient new staff members 
• Help in performing duties consistently
• Gives assurance
• Makes sure it’s done properly 
• Assist substitute or short-term workers 
• Help explain procedures to patrons 
• The manual must be a reasonable size. 

Writing tips 

• Break down tasks into chronological steps 
• What do you do when? 
• Use consistent terms 
• State instructions in plain language 
• Brief short sentences 
• Use positive language for instructions
• Tell people what to do 
• Use negative language for warnings
• Must have dire hard consequences 
• Write procedures in second person imperative
• “Do this” not “He or she does that” 
• Straight forward instructions 
• Pictures really are worth 1,000 words
• Screen shots are really helpful 
• Flow charts give a visual guide to decision making
• Really helps, forces to ask right question 
• Make the most of white space and headings
• Must be easy to focus on 
• Reinforce items with use of font or layout (e.g. Box around important element) 
• E.g. Boxes around warnings 
• If terms repeated frequently, think of short form which can be used consistently 
• ‹ Enter › rather than Press enter key 
• Have procedures read by lefties, sometimes we are too right-hand oriented
• Use page protectors for items consulted often 

Sample manuals 

Roger Williams Library https://web.archive.org/web/20040223192022/http://library.rwu.edu/circmanual.pdf University of Wisconsin-Madison Library http://college.library.wisc.edu/cpm/intro.html