Scope

The mission of the Duke Digital Repositories (DDR) is to ensure the long-term integrity and accessibility of its contents. To ensure the integrity of the materials preserved therein, this policy governs any request to deaccession, delete, withdraw, or otherwise change access rights to (hereafter referred to as deaccession) materials after they have been deposited in the DDR. This policy aims to meet the obligations of copyright, privacy, revision, and access with transparency. In support of its mission, it is generally the policy of the DDR to provide as broad of access as possible to the materials we hold consistent with our legal and ethical obligations and to deaccession materials only for compelling legal or ethical reasons.

Personnel and terms

Deaccessioning¹ refers to a range of approaches to changing objects and their access levels once deposited in the DDR or Protected Data Repository. Such approaches range from changing access rights for objects to fully purging objects from the DDR, its access layer, and all local and disparate backups. Approaches may change over time as systems and tools evolve. Refer to the Deaccession Procedure (DUL staff only) for more specific information.

All requests to deaccession materials be made using the Deaccession Request Form. Requests can be for a variety of reasons (detailed in the Deaccession Procedure), including those based on:

Copyright or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
Data and information sensitivity, restriction, or privacy
Author, creator, or rights holder
Erroneous submissions

Ultimate authority to make decisions regarding deaccession lies with the Repository Program Manager except in cases where a scheduled deaccession event was agreed upon at deposit. The Repository Program Manager may designate appropriate collection owners and other repository staff to make decisions in the manager’s place.

For copyright-related takedown requests, you may also refer to Duke University's general Copyright/DMCA takedown policy.

The Library of Congress Linked Data Service- Event Type: Deaccession