mplp: adoption, adaptation, and misunderstanding dennis meissner head of collections management...

MPLP: Adoption, Adaptation, and Misunderstanding

Dennis MeissnerHead of Collections Management

Minnesota Historical Society

09/27/2012 University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee 1

Part 1

Overview: Research, findings &

recommendations


2

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”

--Winston Churchill

The Problem

• Archival processing does not keep pace with the growth of collections

• Unprocessed backlogs continue to grow• Researchers denied access to collections• Our image with donors and resource allocators

suffers

09/27/2012University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee

4

Hypotheses

• Increasing breadth and scale of contemporary collections

• Failure to revise processing benchmarks to deal with problem


5

Methodology

• Literature review (70 sources)• Repository survey (100 responses)• Grant project survey (40 NHPRC files)• User survey (50 scholars)


6


7

Repository Survey Respondents

C&U Archives

Research Libraries

Religious Institutions

State Archives/HistoricalAgencies

County/Local Govt. Archives

Museum Archives

Public Libraries

Other

Findings

• Processing benchmarks and practices are inappropriate to deal with problems posed by large contemporary collections

• Ideal vs. necessary• Fixation on item level tasks• Preservation anxieties trump user needs



9

92

60

68

0 20 40 60 80 100

WeedDuplicates(20th C.)

SeparatePhotos

Arrange atI tem Level

Survey: Arrangement Practice

Findings

Description

• Practice:• Weak commitment to online access• Little focus on item level

• Warrant:• Describe all holdings, in general, before describing some in

detail• Descriptive level follows arrangement level• Level varies from collection to collection



11

Survey: Descriptive Practice

We "sometimes, usually, or always"...

31

38

72

0 20 40 60 80

HTML (inlieu of EAD)

EADFinding

Aids

Cat.Records in

OPAC

Findings

Conservation

• Practice: Strong commitment to item level work• Warrant: Item-focused conservation prescriptions

often contradict advice on arrangement and description



13

Survey: Conservation Practice

We "sometimes, usually, or always"...

88

46.9

81

89

0 20 40 60 80 100

Separate and/ orSleeve Photos

Encapsulate/ MendTorn I tems

PhotocopyNewsprint, etc.

Remove MetalFasteners

Findings

Metrics• Literature: Range of 4 - 40 hours per cubic foot

• However, a convincing body of experience coalesces at the high-productivity end:

• Maher, 1982 (3.4 hours per cubic foot)• Haller, 1987 (3.8 hours per cubic foot)• Northeastern University Processing Manual (4-10 hours

per cubic foot)• Grant Project Survey: 0.6 – 67 hours per cubic foot

(Mode = 33 ; Mean = 9)

• Survey of Archivists: 2 – 250 hours per cubic foot (Mode = 8 ; Mean = 14.8)



15

Productivity Expectations (hours/cubic foot)

0 20 40

RepositorySurvey

Grant FileSurvey

Literature

MeanMode

Recommendations

General Principles for Change

• Establish acceptable minimum level of work, and make it the benchmark

• Don’t assume all collections, or all collection components, will be processed to same level


Recommendations

• Arrangement• Description• Conservation• Productivity


Recommendations

• Arrangement

• In normal or typical situations, the physical arrangement of materials in archival groups and manuscript collections should not take place below the series level

• Not all series and all files in a collection need to be arranged to the same level


Recommendations

• Description

• Since description represents arrangement: describe materials at a level of detail appropriate to that level of arrangement

• Keep description brief and simple• Level of description should vary across collections,

and across components within a collection


Recommendations

• Conservation

• Rely on storage area environmental controls to carry the conservation burden

• Avoid wholesale refoldering• Avoid removing and replacing metal fasteners• Avoid photocopying items on poor paper

• Don’t perform conservation tasks at a lower hierarchical level than you perform arrangement and description


Recommendations

• Productivity

• A processing archivist ought to be able to arrange and describe large twentieth century archival materials at an average rate of 4 hours per cubic foot


Part 2

What’s it all about—I mean really?


22

Getting better results

• Results trump approaches and processes

• Best results achieved through meaningful scaling and flexible approaches

• Archival approaches provide an extensible model for working at scale

• MPLP offers some value as a model


Key MPLP messages

• It’s about results, not approaches• It’s about managing resources

• It’s not about:• Cookie-cutter approaches• Some particular arrangement level or approach• Some particular description level or approach• Paper, clips, staples, and rubber bands• Refoldering/not refoldering• Reboxing/not reboxing• Mending, cleaning, photocopying, deacidifying• Whether we read all collection items


Key MPLP messages

• Make user access paramount: Get most material available as quickly as possible in some usable form

• Expend greatest effort on most deserving or needful materials

• Establish an adequate, minimal level of work as the processing benchmark

• Embrace flexibility: Novel approaches for novel problems

• Don’t allow preservation anxieties to trump user access or good sense


A better model

• Put the customer first: We preserve collections to provide access, not because they are groovy-cool

• Expose hidden collections• Adjust practices to align with resources• Use archival approaches to achieve archival scale• Digitize, digitize, digitize (with the resources you save)


A better model

• Establish good risk management models• Risk is unavoidable• Risk is amenable to being managed:

• assess• mitigate• budget• respond


Old processing model

Process driven



Process drivenResource insensitive



Process drivenResource insensitiveArtisan quality



Process drivenResource insensitiveArtisan qualityHigh unit cost



Process drivenResource insensitiveArtisan qualityHigh unit costLengthy turnaround



Process drivenResource insensitiveArtisan qualityHigh unit costLengthy turnaroundStable resources


New processing model



Audience driven



Audience drivenResource sensitive



•Audience driven•Resource sensitive•Production quality



Audience drivenResource sensitiveProduction qualityLow unit cost



Audience drivenResource sensitiveProduction qualityLow unit costRapid turnaround



Audience drivenResource sensitiveProduction qualityLow unit costRapid turnaroundUncertain resources


Part 3

Beyond archives


Archival approaches produce big outcomes for Special Collections

• Broad approach to leveraging our collective ability to provide access to research collections

• Extensible to deal with novel problem spaces

• Sustainable approaches, at meaningful scale, can result from seeing items as collections

• Economic approaches are driving innovations in practice, among them digitization


Digitization offers biggest opportunities

• Audience engagement• Opportunities for revenue and relevance• Adequate approaches yield exponential outputs • A problem space that archivists are addressing:

• User needs and interests• Flexible approaches and procedures• Relaxed approach to “standards” and “best practice”• Novel solutions that are widely extensible



• Rethinking items as collections• Photographs (albums and loose images, as well)• Sheet music• Bound publications• Maps• Oral histories• Audio and moving image materials • Born-digital holdings


Photograph collections


Sheet music collections


Telephone directories


Born-digital holdings



• Rethinking items as collections• Photographs (albums and loose images, as well)• Sheet music• Bound publications• Maps• Oral histories• Audio and moving image materials• Born-digital holdings

• Use PDFs to inexpensively bundle and present complex objects


PDFs: low-cost digital carriers


The (im)Perfect PDF

• Perfection—the leading cause of program death

• Scan with flatbed, camera, or photocopier

• As fast as possible (whatever works)

• JPEG quality (300 ppi max)

• Bundle images into a single PDF

• OCR, if it can be done cheaply


The (im)Perfect PDF

• Throw away the JPEGs! (no preservation value)

• Create strong filenames

• No added descriptive metadata (inherited from context)

• Archival finding aids carry metadata, discovery, and access burden

• OCLC Research Scan on Demand white paper: http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/2011-05.pdf


http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/2011-05.pdf


• Walter Mondale Papers

• NEH “We the People” Project• High productivity + high-value products

• http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697.xml


http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697.xml

Mondale Papers finding aid


MHS project : People of Phillips Records• Content: Committee records, minutes, reports, bylaws, directories, some photographs,

and materials related to housing, youth and other programs of a community development organization located in a distressed South Minneapolis neighborhood.

• Condition: Box list to only 17 boxes; series were atomized throughout boxes; no arrangement or appraisal had been performed during acquisition.

• Quantity: 33 c.f. accessioned; 27 c.f. retained

• Staff: 1 processing assistant, 1 cataloger, 1 processing manager

• Time: 74 total staff hours (0.45 c.f./hour) including supervision

• Performance: Exceeded basic MPLP expectations by 60%


MHS project : People of Phillips Records

• Arrangement:

• Use a top-down approach

• Start by performing a rough overview and tagging box contents with identifying information to help form separate series and plan series arrangement;

• Sort out the known and recognizable sets (Administrative and Financial files; Councils and Committees) to whittle down to the less known or recognizable sets.

• Material in binders dismantled and foldered• Loose material foldered as found, and identified by record type• Obvious duplicates culled



• Arrangement:

• Assess the nature of remainder to give rough groupings (Housing Files; Subject Files). In the case of the housing files we chose only to list those that served as the administrative subsets within these series (bylaws and minutes) and to simply group the remainder as a set of unlisted subject files.

• Key box contents into Excel template as each series is completed

• Assign locations at end of processing, label boxes, and add location numbers to container list.



• Description:

• Excel box list converted into EAD by cataloger using script • Catalog record created in OCLC, uploaded to WorldCat• Record downloaded into MnPALS (local OPAC)• MARC record converted (MARCtoEAD script) to create high level

(archdesc) portion of EAD



• EAD: Overview



• EAD: Container list• Admin & financial files• Councils and committees

• NOTE: that for many very large files (often comprising entire containers) small, focused scope notes are included. An assist to users that cost very little in added time.



• EAD: Container list• Housing files



• EAD: Container list• Subject files



• EAD: Catalog tracings


Indictments of MPLP approach

• Loss of item-level control

• A specious argument; archival mythology• Historical application has been occasional, haphazard,

ineffective• MPLP message: Never say never!

• Process all collections to sufficient basic level, then…• Focus extraordinary efforts intentionally, not accidentally• Archival thinking has always emphasized the whole over

the parts



• Loss of item-level control• Exposure of “sensitive” and third-party materials

• Archivist-donor-researcher cost-sharing is out of balance• Educate donors and users• Reinvent collaboration models

• Archivists have bad risk management models• Litigation vulnerability hugely overstated• Fearful behaviors may help create unsustainable “affirmative

standard”• Pursue reasonable mitigation efforts, not unreasonable ones



• Loss of item-level control• Exposure of “sensitive” and third-party materials• Unfair burden imposed on researchers & reference

staff• Current cost-sharing model: Archives bear all costs;

researchers none• Need new model that recognizes the economics of access:

• Understand “true cost of ownership,” and apportion those costs• Free kittens, not free beer• The researcher’s currency is time and labor

• Added user costs are smaller overall than saved processing costs



• Loss of item-level control• Exposure of “sensitive” and third-party

materials• Unfair burden imposed on researchers• Invitation to document thieves

• Item-listing reduces theft in same way that publishing household goods inventories reduces burglaries



• Loss of item-level control• Exposure of “sensitive” and third-party materials• Unfair burden imposed on researchers• Invitation to document thieves• Professional status of archivists is weakened

• Archivists will not be judged on processing labor inputs, but rather on user outcomes

• Finding aids are not archival literature• Economical processing makes us smarter, not dumber,

because it helps us become managers


Have we reconsidered any advice?

• Description

• ROI much higher here than with physical processing

• When resources permit, describe at finer granularity than you process

• Searchable text mitigates other effects of other economies• Browser-exposed EAD finding aids• File-level container lists not a huge additional burden


72

The big picture

• What is MPLP?

• "At its core, MPLP asks archivists to embrace change, to place access at the pinnacle of what we do, and look more to the forests than the trees. These are not easy goals."


The big picture

• What is MPLP?

• “The goal is to work smarter, not harder; to do things ‘well enough’ rather than ‘the best way possible’ to accomplish more with less (or the same) resources.”


The big picture

• What is MPLP?

• It’s not just about doing less to more

• It’s about the big picture of processing:• Matching our resources to our backlog problems• Employing a more pragmatic approach to processing• Weighing the benefits against the costs and/or risks• Managing expectations – our own and those of our donors, resource

allocators, and users• Making decisions based on the individual institution and the individual

collection

• It’s about sustainability and effectiveness


The big picture

• When you remove the routine tasks, what is left:

• Making the tough decisions

• Looking at the big picture of providing the most access to the greatest number of collections

• Doing the intellectual work of processing


The big picture

• Don't be afraid to make mistakes

• Do trust your abilities, training, and skills

• “The Future Belongs to Archivists”


Dennis MeissnerHead of Collections Management


[email protected]


mplp: adoption, adaptation, and misunderstanding dennis meissner head of collections management...

Documents

survey arl

milwaukee9 survey

special collections

unpublished results

timehonored way

andor resource allocators

thingsthe right way

item level warrant