Policy Commons 2025 Open Collection

Coherent Digital not only rescues documents quickly and at scale, but we also ensure their long-term discoverability. We recently introduced COIs (Content Object Identifiers), which are permanent unique identifiers similar to DOIs. COIs ensure every item can be cited with confidence, because the links won’t break. COIs are compatible with all reference management systems and academic discovery services like Google Scholar. By enriching each document with detailed metadata, we enhance its value for research, teaching, and public engagement.

With a mission to preserve endangered content, Coherent Digital has a long history of leading efforts in this area. We've launched several global collections aimed at preserving government documents. The continually growing World Governments database now indexes 5.7 million government documents from around the world, while World Cities and Local Governments preserves millions of hard-to-find municipal reports.

Policy Commons 2025 Open Collection is our first Rescue-to-Open project.

For every customer dollar spent on current Policy Commons collections between now and December 31, 2025, we’ll rescue an endangered item, enrich it with metadata, and make it freely available to the world. The Rescue-to-Open business model will enable us to fund the rescue of millions of items and make them available for future scholars.

Coherent Digital is actively working with librarians and the policy community, who are helping to identify and contribute endangered websites, reports, datasets, podcasts, and other content in urgent need of rescue and preservation. 

You can join the effort by using the form embedded on this webpage to recommend URLs for rescuing—or by reaching out directly to our publisher, Toby Green.

If you already subscribe to one or more Policy Commons collections, there's nothing you need to do. At the top of any Policy Commons page, click "Modules" to see all the Policy Commons collections you're authorized to access. Policy Commons 2025 Collection is now listed there as one of your accessible modules.

If you're not a Policy Commons paid subscriber, you'll be able to access Policy Commons 2025 Collection soon. Please watch for our announcement. For security reasons, you'll be asked to complete a simple registration—to help us protect the integrity of the collection, prevent misuse, and ensure that important content remains accessible to those who need it. All materials will remain freely available to everyone who registers.

A Content Object Identifier (COI) is a unique, persistent identifier assigned to content such as grey literature, reports, blog posts, videos, and podcasts. Just as a phone number uniquely connects to one person or organization, a COI connects to a piece of content, so it can always be discovered and cited by researchers reliably. Coherent Digital assigns a COI to every item we index or ingest into our platform. Like DOIs, COIs are compatible with all reference and citation management tools.

Watch this video to learn more.