More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing

Greene, Mark A.; Meißner, Dennis

doi:10.17723/aarc.68.2.c741823776k65863

Cited by 143 publications

(63 citation statements)

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“…The mainstreaming of More Product, Less Process (MPLP) processing (an approach to minimal processing popularized in the early 2000s) arose specifically as a response to growing backlogs (Greene & Meissner, 2005). The MPLP procedures have been celebrated for their emphasis on increasing access.…”

Section: Sustainable Choices That Support Resiliencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Archival adaptation to climate change

Tansey

2015

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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Discussion of the likely impacts of climate change on archives is significantly deficient in the archival profession. Archives hold rare and unique materials that are irreplaceable and institutional adaptation to climate change is critical to the survival of these resources. The earliest effects of climate change are likely to be increased weather events that threaten the physical safety of holdings. Hurricanes, floods, and fires pose particular risks to archives due to potential damage to buildings as well as from limitations of local infrastructure to rapidly respond to disasters. Disaster preparedness for archives needs to include planning responses to a wide variety of situations that threaten holdings. As societies begin to adapt to climate change, archivists should consider how values of sustainability and resiliency might inform archival practice.

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Section: Sustainable Choices That Support Resiliencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Archival adaptation to climate change

Tansey

2015

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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“…It is anticipated that this additional capacity in collections processing along with the use of the principles of More Product Less Process (Greene and Meissner, 2005) should see the cataloguing backlog of existing collections eliminated by the project's end (Ince, 2014; University of Huddersfield, 2014); policies for other aspects of processing are being developed (Erway 2012). At project end an estimated equivalent of 0.6fte will be able to be deployed more profitably in serving audiences owing to the incremental reduction in individual item production and response times resulting from improved collections management.…”

Section: Staffmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritage Quay: What Will You Discover? Transforming the Archives of the University of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, UK

Wickham

2015

New Review of Academic Librarianship

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The University of Huddersfield presents a key case study of the transformation of its Archives Service, using the newly-developed Staff/Space/Collections dependency model for archives and the lessons of the UK's Customer Service Excellence (CSE) scheme in order to examine and illustrate service development.Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and University funding has created new spaces for the audiences and collections of the future, including innovative technology on site to showcase and to explore digitised and digital material. Changes in collecting and collections management and new staff skillsets are developing to meet the needs of the audiences identified through extensive collections based consultation.

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“…Common types of assessment studies in special collections literature include methodologies for computing the time (Abraham, Balzarini & Frantilla, 1985) or money (Ericksen & Shuster, 1995) required to process archival materials, reducing the backlog of hidden collections (Jones, 2004), measuring the impact of special collections cataloging (Lundy, 2008), and performing condition assessments (Green, 2004). While many of these studies, particularly those discussing minimal standards processing, consider access and user implications (Greene & Meissner, 2005), very few as yet focus specifically on establishing metrics for defining "good" public services in special collections or archives. The Archival Metrics project is an outlier, providing toolkits for assessing various parts of a special collections or archives department, including public services web tools.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data-Driven Decision Making: An Holistic Approach to Assessment in Special Collections Repositories

Griffin¹,

Lewis²,

Greenberg³

2013

EBLIP

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2013 Griffin, Lewis, and Greenberg. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons-Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License 2.5 Canada (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncsa/2.5/ca/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same or similar license to this one. AbstractObjective -In an environment of shrinking budgets and reduced staffing, this study seeks to identify a comprehensive, integrated assessment strategy to better focus diminished resources within special collections repositories.Methods -This article presents the results of a single case study conducted in the Special and Digital Collections department at a university library. The department created an holistic assessment model, taking into account both public and technical services, to Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2013, 8.2 226 explore inter-related questions affecting both day-to-day operations as well as long-term, strategic priorities.Results -Data from a variety of assessment activities positively impacted the department's practices, informing decisions made about staff skill sets, training, and scheduling; outreach activities; and prioritizing technical services. The results provide a comprehensive view of both patron and department needs, allowing for a wide variety of improvements and changes in staffing practices, all driven by data rather than anecdotal evidence.Conclusion -Although the data generated for this study is institutionally specific, the methodology is applicable to special collections departments at other institutions. A systemic, holistic approach to assessment in special collections departments enables the implementation of operational efficiencies. It also provides data that allows the department to document its value to university-wide stakeholders.

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More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing

Cited by 143 publications

References 0 publications

Archival adaptation to climate change

Archival adaptation to climate change

Heritage Quay: What Will You Discover? Transforming the Archives of the University of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, UK

Data-Driven Decision Making: An Holistic Approach to Assessment in Special Collections Repositories

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