OUR EDITORIAL METHOD

Understand the system. Trace the source. Preserve your choices.

A useful public library gives a reader more than a conclusion. It provides a practical entry point, understandable reasoning and a route to the underlying records and authorities. This is the method I am building across these libraries.

1. Begin with the reader’s question

What decision is the reader facing? What records are available? Which jurisdiction, date, agreement or institution matters? A guide should make the question concrete before presenting an answer.

2. Identify the kind of support

A statute establishes something different from a police report, an insurance policy, a research study or a person’s account. Governing authority, factual records, policy, interpretation and unresolved claims should remain distinguishable.

Where possible, connect a proposition to the precise section, page, paragraph or record location that supports it.

3. Show how the conclusion follows

A citation alone does not explain the reasoning. Describe how the source supports the proposition, what assumptions are necessary and which material limitations or contrary sources affect the result.

Readers should be able to examine the source themselves and decide whether the explanation holds.

4. Use the version that governs the question

The newest source may not govern an older event. Offer the current official source and the historically applicable version when both matter. Preserve dates and version information so the reader can distinguish them.

5. Keep uncertainty visible

State what is established, what is disputed and what remains unknown. A missing record or failed retrieval does not resolve the underlying question.

Corrections should explain what changed, why it changed and which source supports the revision.

6. Maintain the library as a record of work

Source registries, dated review logs, preserved documents and documented corrections help make maintenance possible. Monitoring may identify a change; editorial assessment determines its significance, and publication is a separate step.

A review date should describe an actual completed review. Source counts and automated retrieval do not, by themselves, establish accuracy.

7. Build for stewardship

The long-term aim is a body of work others can maintain and carry forward through documented methods, permissions, backups and responsibilities.

My experience informs the questions I ask. The sources and reasoning must carry the conclusions.