Terms of Use
These terms apply to your use of brownsriver.com, the website of Browns River Ledger, an independent publication based in the United States. By reading or using the site, you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.
Effective date: October 2026
What the site is
Browns River Ledger publishes articles and reference guides about records preservation, book and paper conservation, document digitization, archives and local history, and information governance. We're a small group of writers. We don't sell conservation, imaging, storage or consulting services, and nothing on the site is an offer to provide them.
Information, not professional advice
Everything on the site is general information, written to help readers understand their options. It isn't legal advice, professional records management advice, or conservation advice for any particular item or situation.
Records, materials and laws differ. A treatment that suits one document can damage another, and public records, retention and privacy laws vary from state to state and change over time. Before acting on anything you read here, especially before treating an original document, destroying records, or responding to a legal request, consult a qualified professional: a conservator for questions about objects, your records officer or state archives for retention and disposition, and an attorney for legal questions.
Copyright
Unless stated otherwise, the articles, guides, images and other content on the site are protected by copyright and belong to Browns River Ledger or its writers. The site's name and design are ours as well. You may read, print and save pages for your own personal, educational or professional reference.
Quoting and linking
You're welcome to quote limited portions of an article, such as a paragraph or a short list, in your own work, presentations, training materials or posts, as long as you credit Browns River Ledger and, where possible, link to the original page.
Please don't republish whole articles or guides, substantial parts of them, or our images without written permission. Ask through the contact form; we're generally glad to talk about reuse for training or nonprofit purposes.
Linking to any page on the site is welcome and needs no permission. Please don't frame our pages in a way that suggests they belong to another site.
Links to other sites
Articles sometimes link to other organizations' websites. We include those links because we think they're useful, but we don't control those sites and aren't responsible for their content, accuracy, availability or privacy practices. A link isn't an endorsement of everything on the other site.
Acceptable use
Please don't use the site in ways that harm it or other people: no attempts to break into the administration area, no automated scraping that degrades performance, and no use of the contact form for spam or abuse. We may block access from addresses that do these things.
No warranties
We work to make our articles accurate and useful, and we correct errors when we find them. Even so, the site and its content are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We don't guarantee that the site will always be available or free of errors.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Browns River Ledger and its writers are not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or other damages arising from your use of the site or your reliance on its content, including damage to records, documents or collections, loss of data, or the cost of professional services. Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations of liability, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Vermont, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
Changes to these terms
We may update these terms from time to time. When we do, we'll post the new version on this page and revise the effective date. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.
Contact
Questions about these terms, or requests to reuse our content, can be sent through the contact form.