"More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing" is a 2005
archival science
Archival science, or archival studies, is the study and theory of building and curating archives, which are collections of documents, recordings and data storage devices.
To build and curate an archive, one must acquire and evaluate recorded m ...
article written by
Mark A. Greene and
Dennis Meissner that first appeared in the Fall/Winter 2005 issue of ''
The American Archivist''.
The paper argues that traditional
archival processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person enga ...
is too slow, and advocates for the use of minimal processing in order to reduce backlogs and provide access to archival collections as quickly as possible.
The ideology presented in the article, abbreviated as MPLP, has since been widely adopted in modern archival theory with subsequent praise directed primarily towards the ability to increase user accessibility without prohibiting the option for future processing.
Article summary
Call to action
Greene and Meissner begin the article with a call to action, citing the British report ''
Best Value and Local Authority Archives'', which claims that archival
cataloging
In library and information science, cataloging ( US) or cataloguing ( UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as auth ...
, arrangement, and description are "not working" and that growing backlogs are "weakening the archival profession".
The authors hypothesize that "processing projects squander scarce resources", and that it is thus necessary to entirely reframe the discussion about processing rather than simply suggesting a new processing technique.
Their methodology included a
literature review, an overview of
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
(NHPRC)
grants
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
*Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
* Grant, Inyo County, ...
, two
surveys, and examination of other relevant studies.
Greene and Meissner discuss what they perceive to be problems with processing and cite a 1998
Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and research l ...
(ARL) survey of
special collections units which found that nearly a third of
manuscript collections made up uncatalogued backlogs.
The authors present a new set of guidelines for arrangement, preservation, and description:
# Expediting the availability of collections to users;
# Assuring ''adequate'' arrangement of materials for users' needs;
# Taking the ''minimum ''steps necessary for physically preserving collection materials;
# Describing materials ''sufficiently'' for use.
Major findings
The authors argue that arrangement at the
''item'' level is not necessary and instead emphasize the importance of creating
finding aid
A finding aid, in the context of archival science, is an organization tool, a document containing detailed, indexed, and processed metadata and other information about a specific collection of records within an archive. Finding aids often consist o ...
s for collections instead.
The authors then discuss the rate at which
archivist
An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consis ...
s are able to process collections, citing a 1982 study by
Karen Temple Lynch and
Thomas E. Lynch that put the figure at 12.7 hours per cubic foot.
Further citing a study by the
Billy Graham Center Archives that found the cost of processing as high as 15.1 hours and $374 per foot,
Greene and Meissner lament that with regard to processing, archivists "have utterly failed to come to grips with a critical administrative reality, a reality that eats 90 percent of our direct program expenditures".
The authors propose five major findings from their research:
# Arrangement was still often at the item level;
# Only 51% of repositories were regularly putting
finding aid
A finding aid, in the context of archival science, is an organization tool, a document containing detailed, indexed, and processed metadata and other information about a specific collection of records within an archive. Finding aids often consist o ...
s online;
# While most repositories have some preservation considerations, very few do it consistently;
# Repositories were not responding to the challenges presented by backlogs;
# Many of the repositories store their collections in appropriate
temperature and
relative humidity
Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.
Humidity depen ...
conditions, but still feel the need to remove metal fasteners (which the authors argue is unnecessary).
Principles for change
Recognizing that tradeoffs must be made, Greene and Meissner argue that some preservation concerns must be given up for the sake of providing effective access to users of collections.
They then present their "principles for change" as recommendations for
archivist
An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consis ...
s:
* The Golden Minimum: to reach the processing requirements of current and future users at the most basic level.
* Arrangement: As opposed to organization of individual items, arranging collections at the
series and folder levels simplifies and facilitates research for prospective users.
* Description: to embody the materials, provide context and access information to the user, and reflect the level of arrangement.
* Preservation: Modern climate controlled storage can be trusted to preserve materials following minimalist processing.
* Policies: “Unprocessed collections should be presumed open to researchers. Period.”
* Metrics: Consistency must be established at the most basic acceptable level among all aspects of
archival processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person enga ...
.
"More Product, Less Process" concludes that because greater funding and resources are not forthcoming, archivists must "change the way we process so that we can, with our existing resources, roughly triple the speed with which we process".
The authors acknowledge the difficulty of their prospective changes, similar issues that
librarians face, and the innovative processing work done at institutions including
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U ...
,
Yale University,
Marquette University, the
University of Central Florida
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
, the
University of Montana
The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...
, and the
Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society (officially the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is simultaneously a state agency and a private membership organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of N ...
.
Influence and reception
The minimal processing approach advocated by "More Product, Less Process" has been implemented by many archives and
libraries, including but not limited to the
Library of Congress, the
University of North Carolina's Wilson Library, and the Academic Health Center Archives at the
University of Minnesota.
Greene and Meissner's article has been highly influential within the archival community, and it has inspired multiple series of presentations, seminars, workshops, and webinars on minimal processing.
Emphasis has been drawn towards the argument's devotion to combating extensive backlogs and rethinking
archival processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person enga ...
.
The
University of South Carolina' libraries' blog cites their collection of the papers of Environmentalist, Inc. as a product of MPLP through its lack of thorough processing, but extensive availability to the public.
The article has also inspired the name of "More Podcast, Less Process", an archives-related
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
hosted by Jefferson Bailey of the
Metropolitan New York Library Council
The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) is a non-profit organization that specializes in providing research, programming, and organizational tools for libraries, archives, and museums in the New York metropolitan area. The council was f ...
and Joshua Ranger of AudioVisual Preservation Solutions.
Prior to Mark Greene's death in 2017,
the authors continued to expand their original thesis, notably in a 2010 ''
Journal of Archival Organization'' article that amplifies their resource allocation argument and directly rebuts a variety of critics.
Criticism of "More Product, Less Process" has been primarily directed towards its perceived broadness, lenience, and reductive perspective.
One piece argues MPLP's poor application to item level
digitization
DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer- ...
and notes the ambiguity of relying on relative importance and condition to determine processing priority.
A 2015 article in ''
The American Archivist'' criticizes MPLP as overtly negative and negligent towards the values of preservation and argues that the philosophy places collections themselves at risk.
Greene and Meissner's response reiterates their argument and the opportunity cost relationship of processing and user access.
See also
*
Archival science
Archival science, or archival studies, is the study and theory of building and curating archives, which are collections of documents, recordings and data storage devices.
To build and curate an archive, one must acquire and evaluate recorded m ...
*
Archival processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person enga ...
*
Manuscript processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person enga ...
*
Fonds
In archival science, a fonds is a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization. An example of a fonds could be the writings of a poe ...
References
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Archival science
Academic journal articles