The Handbook · Edition 1.0

The Handbook: review, accession, citation.

This is the operating handbook for material entering the Metanated archive. It governs the review that happens before content is captured, the review that happens after, the accession that closes the file, and the citation that lets anyone else reference it correctly. Civic, education, and cultural clarification are handled here as resource management: each class has a steward, a permitted-use scope, a review cadence, and a stated cost of keeping it.

Book a Pre-Roll Start the Registry The atelier plan

Scope

What this handbook governs

Applies to every accession route: the Registry intake, the Pre-Roll interview, enterprise deposits, and estate transfers.
Applies to the record, not the art. Nothing in this handbook grants Metanated a claim on the work it documents.
Where a contract with a depositor says something different, the contract governs and the exception is recorded on the file.

Roles

Who does what

Depositor

The person or organization placing material on the record. Warrants authority, supplies documentation, signs the release.

Reviewer

Runs the pre and post reviews against this handbook. Cannot also be the depositor for the same file.

Interviewer

Conducts the Pre-Roll to the fixed format. Records facts and intent; does not characterize or advise.

Registrar

Assigns the accession number, completes the metadata record, verifies checksums, closes the file.

Steward

Named owner of a civic, education, or cultural class. Approves use requests and signs the cadence review.

Escalation authority

Resolves contested authority, redaction disputes, and any request to break a stated restriction.

Stage one

Pre-content review — gates 1 to 4

Nothing is captured until these four gates are signed. Each one has a single question, a short check list, and a stated consequence when the answer is no.

Gate 1 · Authority

Can this person speak for this material?

Named depositor matches the party with rights, or holds written delegation from them.
Every contributor named, with the contribution each one made.
Licensed, sampled, commissioned, or inherited elements listed with the terms attached.
Any gap in the chain written down as a gap, not smoothed over.

If it fails · Hold the file. Nothing is captured until authority is documented or narrowed to what the depositor can actually warrant.

Gate 2 · Consent and restriction

What may be done with this, and by whom?

Signed release naming territory, term, medium, and permitted uses.
Named restrictions captured verbatim, including anything embargoed until a date or an event.
Third parties who appear or are identified in the material accounted for.
No privileged, patient-identifying, or minor-identifying material without written authorization from the party who can grant it.

If it fails · Reduce scope to the cleared portion, or hold. A restriction that cannot be honored is a restriction that cannot be accepted.

Gate 3 · Classification

Which resource class does this enter, and who stewards it?

Class assigned: civic, education, cultural, commercial, or estate.
Steward named and available for the cadence review.
Cost of keeping it estimated against the class budget before intake, not after.
Cross-class material split into primary class plus recorded secondary interest.

If it fails · No steward, no intake. Unstewarded material is a liability, not a holding.

Gate 4 · Technical readiness

Will the capture be usable in ten years?

Formats, resolutions, and codecs confirmed against the retention spec.
Two capture destinations available, plus a backup recorder for interviews.
Room, noise floor, and power scouted for a filmed session.
File naming and slate convention agreed before the first take.

If it fails · Reschedule. A badly captured record costs more to fix than to redo.

Capture standard

B-roll — the shot list is the accession

B-roll is not decoration. It captures everything behind the behind the scenes — the room before the take, the setup, the hands, the walk between locations, the work happening while the work is discussed. The A-camera records what was said; the B-roll records what was true. The shot list for that coverage is itself an accession: a numbered, timecoded record of what was documented, signed the day it was captured.

A list is the accession. Every B-roll shot is logged at capture — slate, timecode in and out, subject, location, and operator. The completed shot list is filed as a related accession under the master record, and the footage cannot be referenced by anything other than its list entry.

What B-roll captures

Setup and strike: equipment, lighting positions, room tone, and the space before anyone performs for it.
Process: the actual making — writing, mixing, rigging, loading, rehearsing — not a restaged version of it.
Hands and instruments: the tools of the practice in use, close enough to identify technique.
Transitions: arrivals, departures, walks between rooms and sites, the unguarded movement between set pieces.
Environment: the street, the building, the weather, the date-evidencing detail that places the record in time.
Second angles of the interview: wide and reverse coverage for context, held to the same integrity rules as the master.

Shot list discipline

01Slate every setup: accession number, date, location, operator, and a spoken or written take number.
02Log each shot as it happens — timecode in and out, subject, one-line description. Not reconstructed after the fact.
03Mark restricted frames on the log the moment they occur, before any card leaves the room.
04The shot list is signed by the operator and the reviewer at wrap, and any later correction is a dated addendum to it.
05The list receives its own accession number as a related record — MET-YYYY-CLS-NNNN — and is cited the same way as any holding.
06Footage is retrieved by list entry, never by memory. If a shot is not on the list, it is not in the record.

B-roll is subject to every gate in this handbook. Consent, restriction, integrity, and clearance apply to the wide shot exactly as they apply to the interview master. No footage is captured 'just in case' — every frame has a listed reason or it is not shot.

Stage two

Post-content review — gates 5 to 8

After capture, the record is tested for integrity, accuracy, clearance, and completeness. These gates decide whether the material can be accessioned or has to stay in review.

Gate 5 · Integrity

Is what we hold exactly what was captured?

Checksums generated at capture and verified at both destinations before any card is cleared.
Runtime, take count, and slate log reconciled against the reviewer's paper log.
No re-encode, no colour pass, no noise reduction applied to the archive master.
Any technical fault noted on the file with the take it affected.

If it fails · Recapture, or accession with a documented defect note. Never silently repair a master.

Gate 6 · Factual review

Are the names, dates, and figures right?

Timecoded transcript produced and read against the recording.
Depositor reviews the transcript for factual corrections only — no rewriting of substance.
Discrepancies between the interview and the documents listed, with which source governs.
Unresolved items carried into the follow-up memo with an owner and a date.

If it fails · The file stays open. An unresolved factual conflict is disclosed on the record, never averaged away.

Gate 7 · Clearance and redaction

What is released, and what is held back?

Public cut assembled only from segments the release covers.
Redactions applied to the derivative copies; the master is never cut.
Every exclusion logged by timecode with the reason and who asked for it.
Third-party appearances cleared or removed from anything published.

If it fails · Hold the public cut. The archive copy can be complete while the public copy is not; the reverse is never acceptable.

Gate 8 · Provenance package

Can a stranger reconstruct this in five years?

Master, transcript, log, signed release, and supporting documents bundled as one unit.
Content credentials or equivalent provenance assertions written where the format supports them.
Depositor issued their own copy of the master.
Package hash recorded so any later change to the bundle is detectable.

If it fails · Do not accession a partial bundle. Missing paperwork is the most common cause of a disputed holding.

Stage three

Accession — gate 9, closing the file

Accession number

MET-YYYY-CLS-NNNN

Assigned by the registrar at Gate 9 and never reused, never reissued, never renumbered. CLS is the resource class; NNNN is sequential within the year.

CIV · Civic

Public-interest material: statements of position, governance, community record.

EDU · Education

Teaching, curriculum, oral history, and institutional research material.

CUL · Cultural

Artistic and heritage holdings, exhibitions, collections, performance record.

COM · Commercial

Rights-bearing catalog and production material held for licensing.

EST · Estate

Legacy transfers, successor authority, and posthumous administration.

Required metadata

Ten fields. A field may be marked unknown with a stated reason; it may not be left blank.

01Accession number, accession date, and registrar of record.
02Depositor, contributors, and the authority basis for each.
03Title, description in the depositor's own words, and extent (count, formats, condition).
04Origin dates, custody history, and any documented gap.
05Resource class, steward, and review cadence.
06Rights position: territory, term, medium, permitted uses, named restrictions.
07Capture record: dates, operators, equipment, runtime, take log.
08Integrity record: per-file checksums and the package hash.
09Related files: prior accessions, superseded records, linked estates.
10Open items with owner and due date.

When accession is complete

All eight gates signed, with any failure recorded as a disclosed exception rather than a blank.
Every required metadata field populated, or explicitly marked unknown with the reason.
Checksums verified at two destinations and the package hash written.
Signed release on file matching the rights position recorded in the metadata.
Steward has accepted the holding into their class and the cadence date is set.
Citation string generated and resolvable.
Depositor notified in writing with their copy delivered.

A file is accessioned when those seven conditions are true and a second reviewer has countersigned. Until then it is in review, and it is described that way to anyone who asks.

Stage four

Citation standard

Every accession produces one citation string. It is generated by the registrar, printed on the file, and reproduced without alteration by anyone referencing the holding.

Pattern

Creator, Title (origin year). Metanated Accession MET-YYYY-CLS-NNNN. Record type, captured DD Month YYYY. Verified DD Month YYYY. metanated.com/verify/MET-YYYY-CLS-NNNN

Cultural — exhibition label or catalog

A. Boudreaux, Ninth Ward Brass Sessions (2019). Metanated Accession MET-2026-CUL-0148. Pre-Roll interview and deposit, captured 4 March 2026. Verified 11 March 2026.

Education — syllabus and scholarship

Metanated Accession MET-2026-EDU-0031, Oral history of the 1994 season, interview with L. Trahan, captured 22 January 2026, verified 29 January 2026. Access: education class, on request.

Civic — public record and press

Statement of position, District 4 housing programme (2026). Metanated Accession MET-2026-CIV-0009. Filmed statement, captured 12 February 2026, verified 12 February 2026. Unedited master held; public cut released under the terms on file.

Machine-readable — embedded in a file or page

accession=MET-2026-CUL-0148; class=CUL; captured=2026-03-04; verified=2026-03-11; restrictions=territory:worldwide,term:5y,medium:all; hash=sha256:…

Rules for citing a holding

Cite the accession number, not a file name. File names change; accession numbers do not.
Always carry the verification date. A citation without one asserts more than the record supports.
Never cite a holding that is still in review. Say "in review" and give the date it entered review.
Where a restriction limits use, the citation names it. Omitting a restriction is a misrepresentation of the record.
Corrections are issued as a dated addendum to the accession, and the original citation stays valid.

Stage five

Civic, education, and cultural clarification as resource management

These three classes are not descriptive labels. Each one carries a steward, a permitted-use scope, a review cadence, and a cost of keeping. Clarifying a holding into a class allocates resources to it, and reclassifying it moves those resources.

Civic

CIV

Public-interest material is held so that a position can be checked against what was actually said, on a date, by a person with authority to say it.

Steward: Civic steward, with the escalation authority countersigning anything published inside an election period.
Permitted use: Unedited master retained; public release limited to the cleared cut and the terms on file. No editorial recombination of statements.
Review cadence: Reviewed every 6 months, and again on any change of office or authority.
Cost of keeping: Low storage, high review load. Budget the reviewer hours, not the disk.

Education

EDU

Teaching material is held so it can be used repeatedly by people who did not create it, which means the description has to survive without its author.

Steward: Education steward at the depositing institution, plus a Metanated registrar as counterpart.
Permitted use: Classroom and scholarly use inside the named institution by default; wider release requires the steward's written extension.
Review cadence: Reviewed annually, aligned to the academic year, with a description audit every third year.
Cost of keeping: Moderate storage, moderate review. Descriptions and transcripts are the real expense.

Cultural

CUL

Heritage and artistic material is held so authorship and context outlive the market that briefly valued them.

Steward: Cultural steward, with the depositor or their named successor consulted on any first public use.
Permitted use: Preservation and provenance use always; exhibition, licensing, and publication only within the release scope.
Review cadence: Reviewed every 12 months; condition and format migration checked every 3 years.
Cost of keeping: High storage, lower review. Budget format migration ahead of it becoming urgent.

Stewardship rules

Every class has a named steward and a named deputy. A class with a vacant stewardship stops accepting new material until it is filled.
Clarification is a resource decision, not a semantic one: reclassifying a holding moves its budget, its cadence, and its permitted uses at the same time.
A reclassification request is written, reasoned, and signed by both stewards. The original class stays on the record as prior classification.
Cadence reviews produce a signed line: holdings checked, defects found, migrations due, budget consumed against plan.
Two consecutive missed cadence reviews escalate automatically. Silence is treated as a finding.
Cost of keeping is stated at intake and restated at each cadence review. A holding nobody will fund is documented as at risk before it is at risk.

Exceptions

When something goes wrong

Contested authority

Freeze the file, notify every named party in writing, and describe the holding as contested until the escalation authority resolves it. Nothing is published from a contested file.

Request to break a stated restriction

Refuse at the operating level. Only the depositor or their documented successor can widen a restriction, in writing, on the file.

Redaction dispute

Redact the derivative, keep the master intact, log the disagreement with both positions, and escalate. Never resolve a dispute by deleting evidence.

Legal or regulatory demand

Route to the escalation authority the same day. Produce only what is compelled, log exactly what was produced, and notify the depositor unless prohibited.

Format at risk of obsolescence

Raise at the cadence review, migrate to the current spec, and retain the original alongside the migrated copy with both hashes recorded.

Depositor withdrawal request

Honour the contractual position. Where retention is required, restrict access rather than destroy, and record the request and the outcome on the file.

Assurance

Audit and record-keeping

Every gate signature carries a name, a role, and a date. Initials alone are not a signature.
The file records what was decided and what was left open — an open item is a normal state, a hidden one is a failure.
Retrievals of a restricted master are logged: who, when, under what authority.
A quarterly sample of closed accessions is re-reviewed against this handbook by someone who did not work on them.
Findings are published internally with owners and due dates, and closed findings stay visible for one year.

This handbook describes documentation practice. It is not legal, accounting, or clinical advice, and no accession record is presented as a determination of ownership by any authority other than the parties who signed it.

Start with a Pre-Roll Enterprise deposits