Contents
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1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose and scope of the guide
1.2 Definitions

1.2.1 Official publication
1.2.2 Local authority

1.3 Availabilty of these guidelines

2 Information for inclusion

2.1 Essential information

2.1.1 Where to include this information
2.1.2 More about ISBNs and ISSNs

2.2 Additional information
2.3 Longer documents
2.4 e-Government Metadata Standard elements
2.5 Legal deposit

2.5.1 Publications required by the British Library
2.5.2 Agency for Legal Deposit Libraries
2.5.3 Deposit of electoral registers
2.5.4 Deposit of non-print publications
2.5.5 What happens to legal deposit publications

2.6 Citation

3 Publishing and marketing local authority documents

3.1 Finance
3.2 Questions to ask before publishing a document

3.2.1 Who is the publication for?
3.2.2 How many potential users/readers are there?
3.2.3 What are the expectations of the potential users?
3.2.4 How will the publication be used?
3.2.5 How long will the information be current and how soon will it need to be updated?
3.2.6 How will the publication be distributed so that it reaches the appropriate audience?
3.2.7 Which logo should be used?

3.3 Publishing decisions

3.3.1 Who holds the copyright?
3.3.2 Format and layout
3.3.3 Use of colour and images
3.3.4 Specialist content
3.3.5 Cover
3.3.6 Paper
3.3.7 Printing and binding
3.3.8 Print quantities
3.3.9 Cost of publishing and working out a cover price

3.4 Electronic versus paper

3.4.1 Archiving electronic documents

3.5 Marketing local authority documents
3.6 After publication

4 Legal background and context

4.1 Freedom of Information Act 2000

4.1.1 Publication schemes
4.1.2 Records management

4.2 Re-use of public sector information
4.3 Website content and the e-Government Metadata Standard

4.3.1 Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary

4.4 Data Protection Act 1998
4.5 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

4.5.1 Fair dealing and intellectual property rights

5 Useful resources

5.1 Information Commissioner's Office
5.2 Records management
5.3 Re-use of public information
5.4 e-Government Metadata Standard
5.5 Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary
5.6 Essential information for inclusion
5.7 Legal deposit

6 Further information

6.1 Detailed definition of ‘official publications’
6.2 Publication Scheme Development and Maintenance Initiative
6.3 Code of practice on records management
6.4 Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary

7 Checklist of information for inclusion in publications

8 References

9 List of URLs cited