How the ROK Library works

The ROK Library is expert content that ROK writes once and every agency can start from. By the end of this page you'll know where that content lives, why taking it always means taking a copy, exactly what the copy includes, and how ROK tells you when the original has moved on.

The library is an agency of its own

Library content isn't a special kind of content. It lives in an agency that ROK runs and has marked as a library, and it goes through that agency's own review and publishing like anyone else's.

What makes it different is one extra read rule in the database: the published content of an active library agency — its items, the guide structure between them, the files they use (attached files, and cover, hero and body images) and their tags — can be read by anyone signed in to ROK, whatever agency they're working in. Library drafts and their files are covered by no such rule, so other agencies don't see them, and none of these rules lets another agency write to the library.

Reading isn't receiving. Your operators' devices sync only your own agency's published content, so nothing from the library reaches the field until your agency has imported it and published its copy.

Importing is a deep copy

When you select Import guide or Import on Content → Library (opens the admin console), your browser copies the content into your agency, row by row and file by file, under your own permissions. Every write is checked against your agency's rules like any other: creating the items needs Create content, copying the files and rebuilding the guide structure needs Edit content, and everything is filed under your agency.

The copy brings across the released version of each library item — what ROK has published, not any edits ROK is still preparing:

• each item's title, summary, short description, accent colour and body;
• for a guide, its sub-guides and everything inside them, in the same order;
• cover and hero images, the images inside article bodies, and attached PDFs, video and audio — each file copied once into your agency's own storage and listed in Media, with the copied bodies pointing at your copies;
• the original author attribution.

Only content the library has published comes across, because only that is readable. Everything lands as a draft, so it goes through your review, your approval policies and your publish step before anyone in the field sees it — see how publishing works.

What the copy leaves behind

• Tags. None are copied; tag the drafts with your own.
• Where cross-links point. A link from one library article to another is copied as written, so it still points at the library's item rather than your copy. Your copy reports it as a link to missing content until you re-point it — run Link check after an import.

The import record

After a successful copy, ROK saves a separate import record: which library item you took, its title and type, which agency took it, who, when, and how many items came across. Your staff can read your agency's records, and ROK can see them too, which is how it knows which library content agencies actually use. Saving the record is deliberately best-effort — if it fails, the import still stands.

That record is the only link between your copy and the original. It drives the badges on the Library page:

• Imported shows the date of your most recent import of that guide or item.
• Updated appears when the library has released a new version — of the guide itself or anything inside it — since that date. Edits ROK is still preparing don't count, just as they don't come across in an import.

Both read the record, not your workspace: deleting your copy doesn't clear Imported.

The same record is how ROK tells you about a correction. When the library releases a new version of something your latest import covers, everyone in your agency with Edit content is notified — in the console and, by default, by email — with a link straight to the library's preview of it. One notice per imported guide or item waits until you read it, so a run of small fixes doesn't flood anyone.

Updates are never pushed into your copy

When the library changes, your copy stays exactly as it was. That's the point: content your operators rely on shouldn't change because someone in another organisation edited it.

Taking the update is a choice. Re-import makes a fresh, second copy as drafts alongside the first; it never merges into or overwrites the earlier one or your local edits. Compare the two, carry your changes across, and retire the copy you no longer need.

What this means in practice

• Imports use your plan. Every copied item counts toward your content cap and every copied file toward storage, checked file by file — see how plans and limits work. An import that hits a cap part-way stops and removes what it had copied. Without Delete content it can't remove the items, so those stay as drafts outside any guide (the guide structure is rebuilt last).
• Re-importing doubles up until you delete the old copy, and both count.
• The library is copy-only. Recognition works differently: a catalog badge can be used as-is without copying — see the ROK catalog and your agency's copies.