Archive of Our Own ^beta

We’re adding a new functionality to the Archive! To date, only work creators have been able to add their works to collections. With an upcoming code release, collection owners and maintainers will also be able to invite works to collections!

For Collection Owners & Maintainers

The new code will allow collection owners and maintainers to add works to their collections by visiting the work, selecting the 'Add To Collections' button at the bottom, and entering the name of the collection.

If the work's creator has chosen to automatically allow their works to be included in collections, then the work is added to the collection -- no further action needed!

If the creator hasn't chosen to automatically allow their works to be included in collections, a request will be sent asking them to approve or deny the addition of their work to the collection.

After inviting a work to a collection, maintainers will be able to see its status in the collection's 'Manage Items' page. While the request is pending approval, the work will show under 'Invited'; once approved, the item will move to the 'Approved' section. If the item is rejected, it will show under 'Rejected'.

For Work Creators

Work creators can fully control how to interact with this new feature. Checking the 'Automatically agree to your work being collected by others in the Archive' option in Preferences will allow works to be added to collections directly without approval. A notification will let you know when your work(s) have been added to collections.

If that preference is not checked, you will receive an email asking you to approve or deny the invitation.

Please be aware that these approval request emails fully respect the 'Turn off emails from collections' setting. If collection emails are turned off, but you don't allow your works to be automatically added to collections, you will not receive approval request emails and will need to periodically check your 'Manage Collected Works' page to approve the addition of your works to collections. Similarly, if you have collection emails turned off and do allow your works to be automatically added to collections, you will not receive an email when one of your works is added to a collection.

Creators can review and respond to invitations through the 'Manage Collected Works' page. This page is linked in the approval request email, and is also available in the 'Collections' section of the Dashboard sidebar. From there, you can approve or reject invitations, and review previously approved or rejected invitations.

As always, if you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact our Support volunteers, who will be glad to help!