The idea for this session here today has come about as a result of what I’ve seen
and heard over the last three to four years at SAA annual meetings as well as
regional and state archives meetings regarding the adoption and implementation
by many repositories of More Product, Less Processing, or MP-LP for short, as a
processing strategy, and as a result of my work on SAA’s Education Committee.
Last year, my first on the committee, I was somewhat taken aback that an MP-LP
workshop was being approved to be offered for the first time at the San Francisco
annual meeting. When I, and another member of the committee objected on the
grounds that an SAA sponsored workshop is tantamount to an SAA stamp of
approval, and that to my recollection MP-LP as a processing strategy had not had
what I considered a thorough airing among the membership, the consensus
around the table was “what about MP-LP is there to discuss?”
Let me be clear: I think that this discussion is long overdue, perhaps so much so
that, in my opinion, the current trend is probably irreversible. But I think this
needs to be said, and in my opinion we should have had a full-fledged discussion
about MP-LP as a processing strategy two or three years ago.
As I’ve listened to presentations at SAA, regional and state archives meetings over
the last three to four years, I’ve heard many archivists extol the virtues of utilizing
MP-LP as a processing strategy for their collections; indeed, that by implementing
MP-LP, they’ve opened up hundreds, if not thousands, of their previously
inaccessible collections to researchers. Let me clear once again: I am not against
MP-LP as a processing strategy where appropriate. We all have those kinds of
collections. A scrapbook collection of a Hollywood movie star compiled during the
1950s consisting of newspaper or magazine clippings of no real value. Using MPLP on this kind of collection is appropriate in my view. University Archives is
another place where I believe the selective and limited use of MP-LP makes sense.
However, from what I’ve been hearing over the last three to four years, many
repositories have indiscriminately used MP-LP as their processing standard
without regard to the nature or value of the collections.
Now, let me be clear again: I get it. I think Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner, in
their article on “More Product, Less Processing”that was published in The
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American Archivist in 2005, were honestly trying to present a sound strategy for
dealing with increasingly large backlogs and dwindling financial and human
resources faced by many, if not most, repositories. But in my opinion, the
execution of the MP-LP theory by various repositories was and is flawed from
what I’ve heard at many annual meetings and conferences both large and small,
and is, I hope, not what Mark and Dennis intended.
So I would like to take the opportunity this morning to talk about some of the
grave concerns I have about MP-LP, but even more importantly, I want to talk
about what we are losing, or are about to lose, in the profession as MP-LP
becomes the standard for processing collections.
First: a stated goal of MP-LP is to make more collections accessible faster, thereby
reducing institutional backlogs and material costs while at the same time making
researchers happier. In the short term, the part about making collections
accessible faster and reducing backlogs and material costs is certainly true. Lori
and I contend that the other part about making researchers happier might not be
as accurate as it appears at first glance, and she will address this issue in her
presentation.
Regarding making collections accessible faster while reducing backlogs and
material costs, I would contend that by taking the time to arrange, describe, and
process collections properly and to current accepted standards, we ensure
greater access over time. Archives are not McDonald’s franchises with drive-thru
windows. We should not discard time-tested arrangement, description, and
preservation methodologies for the sake of expediency. I contend that one of our
professional mandates is to ensure that the materials in our collections are
accessible to researchers as fast as possible without compromising the long-term
survivability of that material. Mark and Dennis argued in their article that access
should override long-term preservation concerns. It is our belief, which is
supported by Article VIII titled “Security/Protection” under the Code of Ethics for
Archivists that access vs. preservation should not be mutually exclusive concerns,
but are co-equal responsibilities of an archivist. If your repository has adopted
MP-LP as your standard processing strategy, you are leaving ticking preservation
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time bombs for those archivists who follow you. I don’t believe they, and future
researchers, will think we did them any favors.
To sum up this section of my presentation, I will throw out the outlandish thought
that backlogs don’t matter as much as we think. In my opinion, the answer to
backlogs lies not in crudely or minimally processing collections much like a MASH
unit attends to wounded soldiers, but rather in another, much-dwelled upon but
widely neglected, in practice, archival process that segues to my second point.
MP-LP does not do anything to improve an institution’s appraisal practices or
collecting policy, but instead serves to ensure the continued collecting and
accessioning of collections of dubious historical and research value. If you don’t
have to invest a lot of human and material resources into arranging, describing,
processing and preserving these collections, you don’t have to put much thought
into what you collect and why. So in my view, rather than helping to alleviate
repository backlogs, MP-LP has the potential to actually increase backlogs. Mark
Greene has spent much of his career giving workshops on the art of collecting and
appraisal and I know he continues to preach the absolute necessity of applying
sound appraisal and collecting policy guidelines. I know that he and I both share a
belief in retrospective appraisals of unprocessed collections to determine if they
still fit in a repository’s collecting policy.
Cultural property theft has always been a problem and concern for libraries and
archival repositories. SAA offers a workshop on security and I’m sure ALA does as
well. If MP-LP is a repository’s processing standard, how can the archivist possibly
know what is missing or has been stolen from a collection if he or she never knew
it was there in the first place? Just log onto eBay sometime and do a search
utilizing the names of some of your collections. Did those items come from one of
your collections, or did someone just get lucky at a garage sale or flea market?
Theft from our collections is a reality today, and cynics will say it’s impossible to
stop cultural heritage thieves if they really want to steal something from one of
your collections. That may well be true. But you have a lot better chance of
stopping them, or at least recovering the item if the perpetrator is ever
discovered, if you knew it was in your collection to begin with. Libraries commit a
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lot of resources to prevent books from being stolen from their bookshelves, books
that in most cases can be easily replaced. Why would archivists be less concerned
with the security of one-of-a-kind, far more valuable material that is not
replaceable? It makes no sense.
It is my belief that adopting MP-LP as a processing standard will ultimately affect
donor relations in a negative way. I’m of the opinion that when an administrator
or archivist agrees to accept a collection, there is an implicit, if not written or
verbal commitment on the part of the repository’s representative, to take all
necessary steps to preserve and protect that collection. If the administrator or
archivist is not willing to make such a commitment, then the collection should not
be accepted unless other unavoidable factors are involved. If valuable documents
from a collection come up missing, I don’t think a donor will take ignorance on the
part of the archivist that the documents ever existed as a valid excuse. A donor
should be told at the point of donation where that collection fits in the
repository’s processing priority list and why.
But I think one of the most important things we lose when MP-LP becomes a
repository’s processing standard is the irreplaceable bond that exists between the
researcher and the archivist. Throughout the Twentieth Century, researchers
relied on and trusted the knowledge possessed by the institutional archivist. The
researchers, more often than not total strangers, relied on us to guide them not
only to the collections they requested, but to collections the researcher didn’t
even know existed that contained information germane to their research. Such
knowledge was only gained by the archivist through much effort and the passing
of time, by working intimately with collections, processing them folder by folder,
arranging, describing and preserving them, collection by collection, year after
year. We, in many respects, were the gatekeepers to knowledge. And as
archivists, that’s what we lived for. What a thrill to point researchers to
collections they didn’t know existed, to make links and connections to
information only you, or at best, a few could make and deliver. But I fear, with
MP-LP being embraced by more and more repositories as a processing standard,
this irreplaceable bond between researcher and archivist is being broken. As I
recall, in a letter to the Midwest Archives Conference last year, Mark Greene
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wrote that in the future, “We will rely on researchers to tell us (the archivists)
what is in our collections.” This statement should be, in my opinion, anathema to
the profession. If we are ready to accept that premise, then I believe the archival
profession has been turned on its head and we are headed for a seismic shift in
the definition of what it means to be an archivist.
And there is a solution to the ubiquitous problem of dwindling funds provided by
our institutions, and it’s called fundraising. Fundraising from private sources in the
form endowments has to become part and parcel of who we are and what we do
as archivists. The fact is, is that we are never going to receive enough internal
funding from our institutions to do what we need to do to protect, preserve, and
make accessible current and future collections. Those institutions that are already
raising money privately know the value of doing so. SAA offered a fundraising
workshop earlier this week, and there was a session on Thursday regarding the
subject. Fundraising is part science and part art, but it is not difficult once you
learn how, and it can be very rewarding and can bring you the resources you need
to properly process your collections while decreasing your backlog and making
more of your collections accessible.
I intend to formally request that the SAA Standards Committee and the
Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct review the concept of More
Product – Less Processing and issue opinions on whether or not MP-LP meets
generally accepts professional standards, and fulfills archivists’ ethical and
professional obligations as outlined in SAA’s Code of Ethics for Archivists. I believe
that utilizing MP-LP as a standard processing strategy is a sure way to lose both
physical and intellectual control over your collections. We can’t just blithely
sacrifice legal and ethical responsibilities on the altar of access just because
they’re inconvenient and burdensome. As a standard processing strategy for all
collections, MP-LP is a far too simplistic attempt at a solution to a complex
problem. So to conclude . . . hey, I’m just sayin’!
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