Blog #5

I think that Greene and Meissner present a valid point in their paper, "More Product: Less Process." We have to consider users' needs for access and the limits of human work capacity when we evaluate what is necessary in processing an archival collection.

There are already in existence more documents and artifacts than can be processed using perfectionist guidelines, with more being produced daily. New documents and recently produced documents come in a variety of formats, both tangible and digital, each with their own needs and challenges for long term access and storage. This variety of needs, the large number of damaging factors that exist, and the limits of budgets and time make perfection of archives unrealistic. Insisting on such perfection leaves unprocessed documents and artifacts to rot while waiting and delays important research.

To alleviate some of the burden and facilitate research, priorities can be set and items selected for the "luxury" treatment and other relegated to "good enough" treatment. What "good enough" means can be determined through more research into materials and their survival and by asking questions about what is acceptable damage and for which artifacts is it acceptable.

Greene, Mark A. and Dennis Meissner. 2005. “More Product, Less Process: Pragmatically Revamping Traditional Processing Approaches to Deal with Late 20th-Century Collection.” American Archivist, 63.2 (Fall/Winter).