Margot Note's Blog, page 32

Archival Description: An Annotated Bibliography

Description … captures and communicates knowledge about the broad administrative and documentary contexts of records creation within an organization as a whole as one moves further away from the original circumstances of creation. Its purpose is to preserve, perpetuate, and authenticate meaning over time so that it is available and comprehensible to all users—present and potential. [1]

Principles of original order and provenance aim to achieve the objectives of archival arrangement and description, which preserve the context of the archives and safeguard their evidential value and historical authenticity. Most archivists agree that descriptions of collections are often inadequate to capture the complexity of the records. Both an expanded understanding of the provenance and function of records and an acknowledgment that archivists are co-creators of the records could greatly enhance current description practices.

The following articles discuss the universal theoretical underpinnings of description, rather than specific descriptive standards. Articles, rather than monographs or websites, were chosen for their timeliness and their international perspective on description.[2] Descriptive systems for institutional records, digital records, personal papers, diaries, and ephemera are discussed. The intended audience is archivists at all experience levels, as the articles discuss theoretical approaches that may influence current practices at archival institutions. Archivists informed with current research can create descriptive systems with expended contextual information to assist users to better understand and interpret records.

Beattie, H. (2008). Where narratives meet: Archival description, provenance, and women’s diaries. Libraries & the Cultural Record 44(1), 82-100.

Beattie, Archivist in Description and Client Services, Hudson Bay Company Archives, discusses how archivists can improve description of personal papers and diaries by expanding provenance to include the writer’s motivation, intended audience, custodial history, and the archivist’s representation. Although archivists tend to remain neutral custodians of the historical record, Beattie urges using description methods and aspects of provenance taken from the humanities, which offer richer portrayals of diaries—women’s diaries, in particular. Deeper contextual information, rather than literary, overly subjective interpretations and descriptions, will assist users to better understand these intimate records. Beattie illustrates her points with passages from three women’s diaries at the Hudson Bay Company Archives and the Archives of Manitoba.

Chaudron, G. (2008). The potential of “function” as an archival descriptor. Journal of Archival Organization 6(4), 269-287.

Chaudron, Assistant Professor, Manuscripts, Mississippi State University, notes that while functional analysis has been used for appraisal methods, such as documentation strategy, the Minnesota Method, and macroappraisal, it can also be used for description. Influenced by records management practices, functional analysis allows archivists to examine the structures, processes, and activities of the organization beyond record creation, providing users with a broader view of how records reflected, and were part of, the functions of the organization. However, function cannot be applied as the principal descriptor for all records; while it works for institutional records, it has limited use with manuscripts. When used with traditional descriptive methods, however, functional descriptors can enhance information quality and access.

Duff, W. M., & Harris, V. (2002). Stories and names: Archival description as narrating records and constructing meanings. Archival Science 2(3), 263-285.

Duff, Professor, Information Studies, University of Toronto, and Harris, Archivist, South African History Archive, advocate descriptive standards that allow for a plurality of representation. Archivists must relinquish their control of access to and interpretation of records through description. Although the authority of archivists remains an obstacle for implementing descriptive architectures that allow user annotation, the authors believe that the benefits of presenting a more complete historical record outweigh the costs. User-created annotations in archival description provide opportunities for the marginalized to be heard in addition to authoritative, standardized archival-provided description. Duff and Harris demonstrate the importance of balancing the integrity and authority of archivists, while allowing for alternative voices in description.

Hadley, N. (2001). Access and description of visual ephemera. Collection Management 25, 39-50.

Hadley, Senior Archivist, College of William & Mary, states that description of ephemera varies between institutions, depending on the types of access points and the levels of description required. Using examples from the Houston Metropolitan Research Center of the Houston Public Library (HMRC), she notes that description is determined by the aesthetic and artifactual aspects of the materials, as well as if the ephemera collections are provenance based, artificially created, or within larger collections.
Descriptive systems should explicitly reflect the presence of ephemera, be firmly linked to other description systems in the repository, be consistent across holdings, provide the type and level of description appropriate to the nature of the materials, and anticipate their likely use.

Hedstrom, M. (1993). Descriptive practices for electronic records: Deciding what is essential and imagining what it is possible. Archivaria 36, 53-63.

Hedstrom, Associate Professor, School of Information and Library Studies, University of Michigan, questions whether traditional approaches to description are applicable to electronic records. She suggests using the challenges of digital records to define the purposes of creation; to reassess description’s objects, agents, and timing; and to develop approaches that exploit technology while aligning with archival practice. Description’s essential purposes must allow users to identify, access, understand, authenticate, and interpret meaning. Unfortunately, digital environments focus on data structures and content, not contextual information adequate to support the records’ use as evidence. Hedstrom assesses that the gap between existing practice and the potential for electronic data will narrow with the possibility of exploiting metadata in automated systems, so archivists can capture, rather than create, descriptive information.

Hurley, C. (2005). Parallel provenance: (1) What if anything is archival description? Archives and Manuscripts 33(1), 110-145.

Hurley, a thirty-year veteran of archives programs in Australia and New Zealand, notes that through description, archivists create a single perspective of provenance and a fixed internal structure for the collection. Hurley views provenance as more than simple relationships between units that tell stories of context and structure. He argues that the dynamic relationships and formation of records and the functions in which they took part cannot be properly described within the narrowness of the internationally standardized idea of archival description. Instead, he suggests a parallel provenance that contextualizes alternative narratives about the records into a single ambient description with multiple provenances that enriches the evidential meaning of the records.

Millar, L. (2006). An obligation of trust: Speculations on accountability and description. American Archivist 69(1), 60-78.

Millar, an archival and information management consultant and educator, considers the role of archival description for organizational and social accountability. Comparing the answerability of traditional post-hoc archival description to continuum-based records management, she finds that while they are suitable for their fields, neither ensures the wider accountability of institutions to themselves or to the community at large. She envisions blending the accountability strengths of the post-hoc and continuum-based models into a larger, more holistic framework. This description architecture will support expansive institutional and social accountability to ensure the integrity of records of enduring value and the larger spectrum of functions of the organization responsible for creating and preserving those records.

Peters, V. (2005). Developing archival context standards for functions in the higher education sector. Journal of the Society of Archivists 26(1), 75-86.

Peters, Research Archivist, Glasgow University Archive Services, discusses a research project, which used records of Scottish higher education institutions and made the results available on GASHE (Gateway to Archives of Scottish Higher Education). Believing that archival description based on traditional principles of provenance and original order is limited, Peters borrows from records management practices in which the fundamental relationships of records are their functions and activities, rather than their creators. Description of function is more helpful for archivists and researchers, rather than description based on a single, static arrangement, such as administrative structure, which cannot fully preserve the context of the records. This functional provenance approach allowed records of Scottish institutions, dating back to 1215, to be described seamlessly with current records.

Pitti, D. (2005). Technology and the transformation of archival description. Journal of Archival Organization 3(2/3), 9-22.

Pitti, Associate Director, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia, suggests liberating archival description from the limits of traditional media through technology by integrating the functional strengths of markup and database technologies. Traditional archival description has employed a “single records-oriented apparatus,” such as the finding aid, which describes all records with a common creator, which can be complicated for mixed-provenance records. Pitti notes that by developing semantics and structures for records and their complex interrelations, flexible, dynamic, and sustainable descriptive systems can be created which are more useful than traditional finding aids.

Yeo, G. (2008). Custodial history, provenance, and the description of personal records. Libraries & the Cultural Record 44(1), 50-64.

Yeo, Lecturer, Department of Information Studies, University College London, argues that traditional methods of description do not capture the complex provenance of personal papers, such as those of Sir Richard Fanshaw (1608-66). Archivists need to reinterpret traditional binary distinctions between “organic” fonds and “artificial” collections with more complex relationships of the records; fonds are groups determined by context of creation, while collection is determined by custodianship. To assess the challenges of description, Yeo surveyed 120 description projects at 46 UK archival institutions by University College London graduate students from 2003 to 2007. He found that their provenance lacked information about the nature and historical development of the collection and its custodial history.

[1] MacNeil, H. (1995). Metadata strategies and archival description: Comparing apples to oranges. Archivaria 39, 22.

[2] The following countries’ perspectives on description were represented by the selected journals: Australia (Archives and Manuscripts), Canada (Archivaria), the United Kingdom and Ireland (Journal of the Society of Archivists), and the United States (American Archivist, Collection Management, and Libraries & the Cultural Record). Archival Science and Journal of Archival Organization are considered international journals by their editorial boards. 

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The “Margins of Archivy”: Archival Description of Visual Materials

While libraries have developed structured rules for cataloging print materials, these rules have not fully addressed the needs of image collections. Museums, on the other hand, have acquired great expertise in describing their unique holdings, but these practices vary because of the diverse nature of individual museums and their collections. Even with the emergence of online catalogs, web accessible collections, and improved information searching and navigation, access to visual collections has remained limited due to a lack of standardized description and integrated modes of access.

Increases in visual literacy, the use of photographs as primary sources, and technology’s ability to provide access to images over the Internet have created an impetus for many archival institutions to provide deeper descriptive information for their visual holdings (Kaplan & Mifflin, 2000). The Society of American Archivists (SAA) defines description as:

the process of creating a finding aid or other access tools that allow individuals to browse a surrogate of the collection to facilitate access and that improve security by creating a record of the collection and by minimizing the amount of handling of the original materials (Pearce-Moses, 2005).

Archivists describe their collections based on the principles of provenance and original order. However, unlike textual records, visual materials are often removed from their original locations and filed in subject files without further description. The context and purpose of an image is often not conveyed to those who were not present at the time of the event being captured. Thus, without an accurate record of the names, dates, and events depicted, an image holds little historical value. Schmidle (1996) notes, “Stripped of its original context, an old photograph is reduced to mere curiosity” (p. 14).

This paper discusses archival description of visual materials. SAA defines “visual materials” as “a generic term used to collectively describe items of a pictorial nature, including prints, paintings, photographs, motion pictures, and video (Pearce-Moses, 2005).[1] Current practices, challenges, and examples of image description will be explored. The archival profession has described visual materials inconsistently, making access difficult and regulating visual collections to the “margins of archivy” (Schwartz, 2002, p. 142).

Current Practices of Image Description

Libraries organize published, non-unique items (such as books and serials) using standards such as MARC and AACR2 with LCSH descriptors. Archives, museums, and visual resource collections create lengthy, detailed descriptions of unique materials or their representations (such as slides and digital images), which can be expressed as both collection- and item-level records.

Description expands upon information gleamed during appraisal and arrangement, which produces preliminary descriptive forms, such as container lists; summarizes the context and content of archival materials at multiple levels; and adds usage restrictions and access points for creators and subjects (Zinkham, 2006). Description often includes provenance, style or genre, history and use of the item, preservation details, various views of the item, and controlled vocabularies.

Description presents information not otherwise provided on the images; often there are no identifying texts. Without description, archivists must rely on staff memory or browse through images, which is time consuming and weakens images from handling. Undescribed images are vulnerable to theft and misfiling (Zinkham, 2006).

Schellenberg (1965) devotes the final chapter of Management of Archives to the arrangement and description of visual materials. He notes, “The methods of arranging and describing pictorial records have not been fully defined, much less standardized” (p. 322). Since the publication of his seminal book, formal standards, such as Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), Graphic Materials, and Rules for Archival Description (RAD), have been developed for archival description of visual materials.[2] For example, the ISAD (G): General International Standard of Archival Description defines multilevel principles, such as moving from the broad to specific, linking hierarchical levels, and basic descriptive elements. These elements include creator names, titles, dates, administrative history, scope and content, and locations of originals and copies (International Council on Archives, 2000). While descriptive standards offer consistency, repositories employ descriptive systems suited to their holdings, not universal access, and archival description continues to be idiosyncratic (Pugh, 2005).

In their literature review, Greene and Meissner (2005) found that “[f]rom the mid-1960s to the present, archival authors have dismissed arrangement at the item level as having little utility and being thoroughly impractical for modern collections” (p. 213). Despite the literature, their repository and grant proposal surveys found that a large proportion of archivists have adhered to item-level description, even though it is contrary to the traditional archival practice of collection-level description. The same discrepancy between literature and practice appears to be true for visual collections.

Collection-level description can be useful for images of the same subject, but problematic for collections with a variety of subjects, as it neither improves retrieval nor limits handling of the originals. Ritzenthaler and Vogt-O’Connor (2006) agree that group arrangement and description are necessary and acceptable for large photograph collections or when resources are limited. Norris (1985), in his case study of two very large photograph processing projects, states that “something is better than nothing” for description at the group or collection level (p. 133).  

However, item-level description is more common with visual materials than with textual materials. This is especially true for digital images, which by their nature, mandate it. Archivists must evaluate their visual collections to determine if item-level description is warranted. Critics like Dooley (1995) call item-level description of visual materials “insupportably expensive and unnecessary” and a “relic of a more leisurely past” (p. 88). Although it is time consuming, item-level description makes images searchable, and, with digital images, viewable without having to retrieve the originals. However, resources are seldom adequate to catalog all collections to the item level, and item-level handling should exist within a framework provided by group-level description. Repositories with limited budgets may digitize one or two representative images, while noting that there are additional unscanned images (Ritzenthaler & Vogt-O’Connor, 2006).

Access to image collections is usually provided through finding aids, which only include subject indexing for large collections, if at all. Studies indicate that, among a variety of libraries and archives, the most frequent approach to image retrieval is by subject (Armitage & Enser, 1997). However, archival practices vary considerably, depending on the repository, the resources available, the size and requirements of the collection, and user needs.

With the advent of computers, some institutions used MARC records to provide subject indexing for large pictorial archives through individual collection-level records (Ritzenthaler & Vogt-O’Connor, 2006). The MARC records point users to a finding aid for a particular collection for more detailed information. Since the finding aids were generally paper-based, and often only available locally at the institution, users would have to view them in person.

Item-level MARC cataloging of images, while in some cases desirable, was often neither warranted nor economically feasible (Ritzenthaler & Vogt-O’Connor, 2006). The hierarchical format and electronic access capabilities of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aid, however, offers the possibility of a more powerful, flexible alternative. EADs index image collections by providing access points at the collection or item level, depending on the needs of the institution, collection, and users. As the tools for accessing finding aids become more sophisticated, EADs’ content-specific indexing capabilities will make it a powerful resource for standardized, integrated access to primary source visual collections.

Challenges of Image Description

Like all other archival materials, images are organized and made accessible based on their original order and provenance, but because of their uniqueness, value, subject matter, and historical significance, they present challenges for description. Unlike archives and manuscripts, visual collections often do not have a clearly defined or pre-existing organizational structure, individual titles, or creator names by which they can be described (Ritzenthaler & Vogt-O’Connor, 2006). Baxter (2003) notes that the use of visual collections shaped their description. For instance, early photography collections held at the New York Public Library were treated at bibliographic materials before their recognition as archival resources (Weinstein & Booth, 1977, and Ritzenthaler, Munhoff, & Long, 1984, as cited in Baxter, 2003).

Additionally, when images are indexed, they may not only be described in terms of being “about” a subject but also “of” a subject and, as a result, descriptive access points can be numerous. This knowledge hierarchy is similar to Panofsky’s (1939) preiconographic, iconographic, and iconology levels and traditional subject-headings like broad term, near term, and related term.[3]

Finnegan (2006) argues that image description is inherently subjective, requiring complex conceptual and ideological processes to determine the subject. “Image archives … function as terministic screens, simultaneously revealing and concealing ‘facts,’ at once enabling and constraining interpretation” (p. 118). Interpretation is needed because, as Huyda (1977) writes, “existing captions are often incomplete, inaccurate, deliberately distorted or irrelevant” and that “the attribution of photographs to particular photographers or studios is a complicated process” (p. 10). Additionally, visual materials have lacked description and lagged behind their textual counterparts in automated access because they have held a lower priority in archives (Turner, 1993).

Description is subjective because information is assigned to images, as they are usually not accompanied by textual information. Image retrieval, therefore, translates the users’ cognitive visual needs to descriptive systems entries. Archivists must be able to assist users articulate their information needs, as well as be able to match that expression to an existing image. Image description surrogates, such as keywords, titles, captions, or cataloging records, act as attributes against which a query may be matched and provide support for browsing, navigation, relevance judgment, and query reformulation (Goodrum, 2005).

The lack of visual literacy by both archivists and researchers presents difficulties for archival description of image collections. Since the mid-to-late twentieth century and the rise of the history of social movements and under-represented segments of society, historians had neglected non-textual sources in their research (Kaplan & Mifflin, 2000). Burke (2001) writes of the training of historians:

The criticism of visual evidence remains undeveloped, although the testimony of  images, like that of text, raises problems of context, function, rhetoric, recollection whether soon or long after the event, secondhand witnessing and so on (p. 15 as cited in O’Toole & Cox, 2006, p. 200 n. 54).

Similarly to historians, archivists have been under-schooled in visual literacy. Library science and archival programs devote little attention to visual materials in the curriculum, although professional development classes in photographs are offered by SAA (Kaplan & Mifflin, 2000).

Schwartz (2002) argues that current descriptive practices relegate images to the “margins of archivy” through the archival profession’s

ideas and standards, practices and actions, whether consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, overtly or systemically … By embracing a textual model of recorded information and by adopting a bibliographic model of image classification, [archivists] continue to fixate on the factual content rather than the functional origins of visual images (p. 142-3).

Schwartz notes that it is difficult to apply traditional hierarchical description to visual materials and to understand that hierarchical levels of description are intellectual constructs that may not have material equivalents. She writes:

Traditional item-level description of photographs, indexed by subject and credited to the photographer, but without adequate contextual information about their functional origins and provenance, or clear links to such contextual information, transforms photographic archives into stock photo libraries, reducing photographs to their visible elements, and conflating photographic content and photographic  meaning (p. 157).

Schwartz’s criticisms demonstrate deficiencies in archival theory and practice, which remain unable to address the unique challenges of archival description of image collections.

Image Description Examples

Teber (2004) discusses a survey that the Audio-Visual Archives (A-V Archives) at the University of Kentucky conducted of 24 institutions with newspaper photo morgues. Each institution reported different degrees of arrangement and description, with 18% reporting that the collections were unprocessed. Of the processed collections, both the interpretation of “full processing” and the resources expended differed by institution. Full processing can range from EADs, item-level description, and rehousing to brief, folder-level description. Although survey responders did not define their interpretation of fully processed, 25% have fully processed collections (with 11% of that total with EADs), 14% had collections that were over half-processed, and 43% had less than one half of the collection processed (p. 114).

Respondents noted that because the collections have high local interest and repetitive images (especially with the advent of roll film), description was often minimal. Ideally, each series of photographs should have the location, date, and subject, searchable by a finding aid or a database. This is especially important if the collection is maintained in the original order produced by the newspaper, which may not easily serve users’ purposes. Although newspaper photo morgues represent a specific type of image collection, with its own distinct attributes and challenges, the results of the survey provided real-world insight into the description of visual collections.

Alexander and Meehleib (2001) note that the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (P&P) catalogers employ practices from libraries, museums, and archives. They evaluate the appropriate description treatment for a given group of materials: whether the images should be cataloged at the item, group, or collection level. P&P catalogers create catalog records and finding aids, frequently using a combination of description levels to facilitate access. This blended approach allows broad control over the holdings at the group level as well as specific control over individual images at the item level. This is especially important for high-demand images, images used in exhibits, or images with high intrinsic or market value. Although P&P represents a large image collection with vast resources, this example demonstrates that evaluative methods determine the level of description required.

Archival Description for Visual Materials

Archival description of images has sought to combine traditional library and archival practice with the more focused descriptive practices found in the museum and visual resources communities. Description of images remains challenging. Due to the nature of visual material, a standardized approach for description is ideal, but compromises must be made. All images cannot be indexed completely, nor can all resources be expended on indexing only a few collections. Approaches should be equitable, reasonable, and within the means of the institution. While there are challenges to be found when working with visual materials, these objects hold a wealth of information that justifies the additional effort needed to make them accessible. Archivists must draw visual materials from the “margins of archivy” and establish them in their rightful place as records of enduring value and primary sources of informational and evidential importance for future generations. 

Works Cited

Alexander, A., & Meehleib, T. (2001). The thesaurus for graphic materials: Its history, use, and future. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 31, 189-212.

Armitage, L. H., & Enser, P. G. B. (1997). Analysis of user need in image archives. Journal of Information Science 23(4), 287-299. 

Baxter, G. (2003). The historical photograph: Record, information source, object, resource. Art Libraries Journal 28(2), 4-12.

Burke, P. (2001). Eyewitnessing: The uses of images as historical evidence. Picturing history series. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Dooley, J. M. (1995). Processing and cataloging of archival photograph collections. Visual Resources 11(1), 85-101.

Finnegan, C. A. (2006). What is this a picture of?: Some thoughts on images and archives. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9(1), 116-123.

Goodrum, A. A. (2005). I can’t tell you what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it: Terminological disconnects in digital image reference. Reference & User Services Quarterly 45(1), 46-53.

Green, M. A., & Meissner, D. (2005). More product, less process: Revamping traditional archives processing. American Archivist 68(2), 208-263.

Huyda, R. (1977). Photographs and archives in Canada. Archivaria (5), 5-16.

International Council on Archives. (2000). ISAD(G): General international standard  archival description. Ottawa: ICA. Retrieved May 7, 2018, from the International Council on Archives Web site: http://www.ica.org/sites/default/file...

Kaplan, E., & Mifflin, J. (2000). “Mind and sight”: Visual literacy and the archivist. In R. C. Jimerson (Ed.) American archival studies: Readings in theory and practice. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Norris, T. D. (1985). Processing extremely large collections of historical photographs. The Midwestern Archivist 10(2), 129-134.

O’Toole, J. M., & Cox, R. J. (2006). Understanding archives & manuscripts. Archival fundamentals series. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Panofsky, E. (1939). Studies in iconology; Humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pearce-Moses, R. (2005). A glossary of archival and records terminology. Chicago: Society of American Archivists. Retrieved May 5, 2009, from the Society of American Archivists Web site: http://www.archivists.org/glossary/in...

Pugh, M. J. (2005). Providing reference services for archives & manuscripts. Archival fundamentals series. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Ritzenthaler, M., Munhoff, G., & Long, M. (1984). Archives and manuscripts: administration of photographic collections. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Ritzenthaler, M., & Vogt-O’Connor, D. (2006). Photographs: Archival care and management. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Schellenberg, T. R. (1965). The management of archives. New York: Columbia University Press.

Schmidle, R. (1996). The smile and promise of digital imaging: Preserving photographs in a digital world. Library Hi Tech News, (130), 14-16.

Schwartz, J. M. (2002). Coming to terms with photographs: Descriptive standards, linguistic ‘othering,’ and the margins of archivy. Archivaria 54, 142-171.

Teper, J. H. (2004). Newspaper photo morgues—a survey of institutional holdings and practices. Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 28(1), 106-125.

Turner, J. M. (1993). Subject access to pictures: Considerations in the surrogation and indexing of visual documents for storage and retrieval. Visual Resources 9(3), 245-247.  

Weinstein, R. A., & Booth, L. (1977). Collection, use and care of historical photographs. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History.

Zinkham, H. (2006). Description and cataloging. In M. L. Ritzenthaler & D. Vogt-O’Connor (Eds.) Photographs: Archival care and management. (pp. 164-206). Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

[1] Visual materials are synonymous with “nontextual records,” which “include records formats that are not principally words on paper, such as maps, photographs, motion pictures and video, sound recordings, and the like” and “nonprint materials” which are “items that are not books, periodicals, or pamphlets; nonbook materials” (Pearce-Moses, 2005). The majority of archival literature on nontextual records discusses photographs, but my arguments can be extended to all visual materials as defined by SAA.

[2] For practical instruction on the description of visual materials, see: Zinkham, H. (2006). Description and cataloging. In M. L. Ritzenthaler & D. Vogt-O’Connor (Eds.) Photographs: Archival care and management. (pp. 164-206). Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

[3] For more information on cognitive image levels, see: Note, M. (2008). [Review of Howard F. Greisdorf and Brian C. O'Connor, Structures of Image Collections: From Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc to Flickr]. The American Archivist. 71(2), 571.

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The Picture Edge: Archival Appraisal of Photographs

In The Photographer’s Eye, historian John Szarkowski (1966) writes, “The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge—the line that separates in from out.” The SAA Task Force on Goals and Priorities (1986) notes that archival appraisal, the choosing and eliminating of records of enduring value, “is the archivist’s first responsibility. All other archival activities hinge on the ability to select wisely” (8). Appraisal of photographs and other visual materials, however, have remained on the picture edge—the “margins of archivy”—because “the inherent subjectivity of appraisal is exacerbated by the emotional, impulsive qualities of photographs” (Schwartz 2002, 144; Ballard and Teakle 1991, 43). To preserve the usefulness and authenticity of photography’s complex, versatile form of documentary evidence, archivists must examine its values and criteria, considering the medium’s unique attributes while being mindful of universal archival concerns.

Definition of Appraisal

Appraisal identifies materials offered to an archives that have “sufficient value to be accessioned,” depending on the “records’ provenance and content, their authenticity and reliability, their order and completeness, their condition and costs to preserve them, and their intrinsic value” (Pearce-Moses 2005). Appraisal is “the intellectual activity of weighing the relative value of records to decide which ones may be destroyed and why, and which ones must be kept and why,” serving the research interests of the community over time (Craig 2004, 2). Appraisal evaluates what can be successfully preserved and made accessible, balancing a collection’s enduring values and usefulness against care and management costs (Vogt-O’Connor 2006).

Because the significance of archival records cannot be determined from a preliminary assessment, appraisal is usually conducted after acquisition. Appraisal requires careful deliberation, since decisions not to save unique documents are irrevocable. Selection is especially important for photographic collections, because while the costs of maintaining archives in any format are expensive, the costs related to nontextual formats are even more so (Boles 2005).

Photographic Appraisal

The appraisal of photographs depends on a number of factors, the most important being the organization’s mission statement, acquisition criteria, and collecting strategies. For significant image collections, specific collecting policies for images may also be needed (Vogt-O’Connor 2006). Appraisal policies for photographs “should be flexible enough to accommodate changing definitions of historical value” and “encourage greater consistency, and ensure rationalization and accountability” (Ballard and Teakle 1991, 43-44).

During appraisal, Ham (1993) notes five key aspects of records to be evaluated, including the analysis of context (the evidential value) and content (the informational value). Functional analysis is the importance of the original purpose of the records, including the significance of the records creator, the creator’s functions, and the records themselves. Use analysis is the value of records in meeting the information needs and interests of the repository’s clientele. Cost-benefit analysis weighs the value of information in the records against the expenditures of preservation, including staff time and facilities required for accessioning, processing, conservation, and storage.

To determine whether photographic accessions meet the institutions’ appraisal criteria, Ericson (1991) suggests that archivists ask “Why should I save this?” and “Why should I save this?” (68). While the first question addresses the value of an item as evidence, the second queries the appropriateness of an item for a particular collection. That the material is worth preserving is not enough, it must also meet the goals of the archives (Greene 1998).

Photograph acquisitions should not only be relevant to the institution, but they should also have strong documentation and chain of custody, the legal and physical ownership of records that proves their authenticity. They should display a depth of subject matter, genres, and formats and be in reasonable condition and quantity (Vogt-O’Connor 2006). Thoughtful consideration should be given to photographs without captions or provenance; duplicated elsewhere; in need of significant preservation, research, or arrangement to be useful; have permanent access or usage restrictions; or are too costly to acquire or manage (Vogt-O’Connor 2006). After selection, the result should be a high quality, “discrete, cohesive, and hopefully unique collection” that fulfills the research needs of the institution’s users (Murphy 2003, 155).

During appraisal, archivists must “assume a role more active than that of passive presenter and processor of [visual] documents” (Mifflin 2007, 33). Images are more challenging to appraise than textual documents because they are not self-identifying, bearing “their meaning not in natural language, but in the arrangement of their colors, shapes, textures, dimensions—in short, their physical and visual attributes” (Woll 2005, 20). Burgin (1982) writes, “the intelligibility of the photograph is no simple thing; photographs are texts inscribed in terms of what we may call ‘photographic discourse’” (144).

Archivists have examined this discourse, switching from acquiring photographs from the first fifty years of its invention to selecting only a fraction of photographs in the age of abundance. Leary (1985) writes:

Photo archivists have developed an unusually strong impulse to avoid thinking about the need for selection. After all, we have told each other, the most urgent task is to save what remains of the early photographic legacy, a task which many institutions ignored until recently. The salvage of nineteenth-century photography will remain an important responsibility of photo archives for the foreseeable future. Increasingly, however, the enormous bulk of twentieth-century photography will force photo archivists to confront the necessity of appraisal.

Digital images have added to the urgent need for selection, because they “are not only voluminous and highly fugitive, but also demanding of tailored visual, rather than hand-me-down textual approaches” (Schwartz 2004, 109). Bartlett (1996) comments on the changing attitudes of photographic appraisal, noting that appraisal of analog images seemed “more static, measurable, and relatively easy to detect” than digital images. “Rather than simply invalidate photographic media as now archivally suspect, [archivists] should instead attempt to assess all photographic media, past and present, with a greater sensitivity to their inherently transitory and multiple qualities” (488). While electronic records have increased the necessity of selection, archivists have always wrestled with photographic appraisal. As early as 1979, Taylor noted the archival neglect of photographs when he wrote, “non-textual material showed little evidence of a time series and obstinately resisted an original order between inclusive dates,” and, therefore, “photographs were long ignored as records in the archival sense” (419). Schlak (2008) asserts that archivists have uncritically applied textual models to visual materials, because they have not developed their own image selection standards.

Given the ubiquity of images in modern life and the apparent lamentable lack of visual literacy among archivists and librarians, it is not difficult to understand why little effort is made to reconsider the photograph as an entity at once more and less than the historical content it purports to represent (86).

Appraisal of photographs has been “based primarily on their content and artistic merit,” not the sophisticated reading needed to assess their complex connotations (Boles 2005, 132).

Authenticity

These multifarious meanings have fueled postmodern discussions of the authenticity of visual evidence. Since its invention, photography was thought to offer “an immediate, faithful and permanent record” documenting “the mundane, the trivial, the everyday texture of life so often ignored by more traditional records” (Brown 1971, 32; Leary 1985). “The visceral appeal of looking at people from the recent or remote past was powerful, and photographic records seemed more immediate—more ‘true’ somehow—than secondary descriptions” (O’Toole and Cox 2006, 30). Humphreys (1993) notes that:

photography has been a focal point for concerns about the nature of subjectivity,   authenticity, and representation itself…photographic accuracy, with its emphasis on the copy and the reproduction…promised to make concepts of the genuine obsolete and to   devalue, both economically and symbolically, the original” (686).

However, photographs are no longer regarded as “truth-telling artifacts,” nor “a literal rendering of reality (a reproduction) but is an interpretation—a construction” (Mifflin 2007, 34; Ballard and Teakle 1991, 44). Neither were photographs a “facsimile of a total reality at some moment in time…only a partial reflection” (Huyda 1977, 11). Vogt-O’Connor (2006) writes:

Photographs are expressive and subjective documents whose content is selected to omit    most of the visual world, framed in a camera viewfinder, focused to the photographer’s interest, captured by a certain shutter speed, and recorded upon media that have speed limitations and certain color and tonality biases. Photographers may manipulate their images in the darkroom by airbrushing, cropping, dodging and burning, enlarging, hand-coloring, and retouching them to make the reality reflected in the image better fit the photographer’s or client’s wishes (97).

Stated another way, “the convergence of photographer, subject, camera, and other variables, such as who is or isn’t present, and the authority or influence they have” provides a restricted view of reality that must be examined in the appraisal process (Mifflin 2007, 34). 

The validity of photographic records is further eroded by their different treatment from traditional textual records, which has destroyed their provenance and original order, two fundamental principles of archives (Boles 2005). Provenance is information regarding the origins, custody, and ownership of an item or collection; records of the same origin should be kept together to preserve their context. Original order is the organization of records established by their creator. Maintaining records in original order preserves existing relationships and evidential significance that can be inferred from the records’ context. Photographs are often segregated from their originating records at acquisition, with arrangement and description being performed independently. Due to their chemical components, they may be stored in different environmental conditions. In large repositories, photographs are often managed by different staff and made available in a separate reading room. The separation of photographs from their original order and provenance makes their value as documentary evidence secondary to their aesthetic appeal.

Aesthetic Values

Cook (1980) believes that this separation and special treatment of photographs reduces archivists to curators, judging artistic merit over traditional archival values. Schwartz (1995) counters:

The pejorative tone attached to the term “curator” usually derives from the erroneous assumption that a photo-archivist is motivated by the same concerns as the curator, namely artistic merit or connoisseurship. But aesthetic considerations are a minor element of the archival appraisal of photographs…Just as good grammar assists verbal communication and standardizes comprehension, aesthetic quality aids visual communication (56).

Boles (2005) writes, “many archivists likely have preserved images simply for their artistic merit. Artistic merit does matter” (133). To fulfill their historical research potential and to be reproducible for articles, publications, and exhibits, photographs should have “proper focus to render detail, exposure that preserves the full range of tonal contrast, clarity, satisfactory composition and be in good physical condition”—in short, be aesthetically appealing (Ballard and Teakle 199, 47). Szarkowski (1966) notes that a photograph’s aesthetics are derived from the interaction between “the thing itself” (the subject), the detail, the frame, time, and the vantage point. While these artistic characteristics contribute to composition, photographs used in historical research were taken and preserved for more prosaic reasons than art.

Evidential and Informational Values

Fraser (1981) notes that generally “photographs are not acquired and retained for their aesthetic value or intellectual content, but are expected to serve some useful purpose” (139). Among those most valuable to scholars are photographs that document people, places, things, and events for the purposes of reporting news, encouraging reform, advertising a product or service, promoting a government program, explaining a scientific or industrial process, or illustrating an idea. What is more significant than a photograph’s aesthetics, especially during appraisal, are the image’s evidential and informational values as confirmation of its creator’s activities and its subjects.

Regarding archival appraisal, Schellenberg (1965) distinguishes between primary and secondary values. Primary values are those immediate to the creation of the record, its original administrative, legal, or fiscal purpose for its creators. After their first purpose, records can also acquire secondary values for historical research—their evidential and informational values, which are not mutually exclusive. Evidential values reflect the importance of records as evidence of the organization, its functions, its policies, and the operations of the records creator, for accountability and historical purposes rather than legal purposes. Informational value relates to any other uses of records for documentation of society or historical information, providing unique and permanent information for the purposes of research.

Traditionally, photographs have been generally valued for their informational content. Schellenberg (1965) writes:

Information on the provenance of pictorial records within some government agency, corporate body, or person is relatively unimportant, for such records do not derive much of their meaning from their organizational origins…Information on the functional origins of pictorial records is also relatively unimportant (325).  

Leary (1985) continues, asserting that photographs:

possess minimal evidential value. Frequently, photographs provide some evidence of an organization’s operation, but written records are almost always a better source of essential evidential values…Photographs that show official activities and nothing else are likely to be very boring and insignificant images.

Charbonneau (2005) agrees, noting that photographs require different appraisal models than textual records:

Photographs are distinct from textual documents in that their most important value is informational. This means that archivists cannot resort to their traditional methods when beginning an appraisal for the selection of photographs; that is to say the assessment of the evidential value of the documents which reflects their bond with the creator of the fonds (120).

The prevalent notion that photographs can only be appraised for their informational values may have developed because their evidential values have been obscured, weakened, or destroyed during acquisition and processing. When archivists remove photographs from their provenance and original order, the informational value is the only quality that remains intact.

Evidential values are derived from the context of creation, original and subsequent use, preservation history, authorship, purpose, message, and audience. In order to understand evidential values, archivists must “abandon their faith in the function of the photographic document as a truthful representation of material reality and cease to equate archival value with image content” (Schwartz 1995, 46). Further, “by embracing a textual model of recorded information...archives continue to fixate on the factual content rather than the functional origins of visual images” (Schwartz 2002, 143). Ballard and Teakle (1991) note that the interpretation of photographs engages archivists at a “complex cogitative level that is culturally based. The aim is to recognize the original intention of the photograph—its particular cultural use by particular people. This is rarely given within the picture but is developed in its function or context” (44). Photographs with “intact original arrangement by the creator are useful as they allow repository staff to infer information from the context and to assume the authenticity and judge the reliability of the accession” (Vogt-O’Connor 2006, 78). Kaplan and Mifflin (2000) add, “photographer’s notes and other complimentary sources should be sought out, preserved, and made available” (121). Schwartz (1995) asserts, “archival value in photographs resides in the interrelationship between photographs and the creating structures, animating functions, programmes and information technology that created them” (50). Sassoon (2007) affirms:

Photographs are complex, multilayered objects whose archival values derive from series of interrelationships between photographs and other archival formats, and the dynamics between what is visible and what is invisible. What is invisible are the ephemeral, provenance-based relationships from which archives in original order gain their authenticity, and where viewing serial relationships provides evidence of the broader warps and wefts which are inaccessible when seeing a single thread (139).

Unfortunately, these interrelationships are often lost during preservation, because evidential value is:

embedded in the physical structure of the album, its sequence of pages, the placement of images, the juxtaposition of words and images, and the larger documentary universe of which it is a part is sacrificed in a misguided effort to ensure the long-term physical stability of individual photographs. The meaning of the album, not simply as a housing for the images, but as a document in its own right, and the information it was compiled to communicate is lost (Schwartz 2002, 157).

Additionally, digitization may also obliterate evidential value. Westney (2007) warns, “the major risk posed by digital surrogates is the loss of evidential value due to the destruction of evidence as to the context and circumstances of their origin” (7). Sassoon (2007) continues:

Seduced by both the subject content and visual qualities of photographic archives, and the ease of access that digitisation technology affords, archivists are overseeing the erosion of the transactional nature of records and core principles of archival practice...What has emerged in this new electronic environment is a digital domain with orphans of archivists’ own creation. What have been liberated through technology in the 21st century are archival principles (139).

Viewing photographs with their archival principles of provenance and original order intact makes determining evidential values possible, providing “a hedge against error, discouraging the superimposition of meanings” (Mifflin 2007, 34).

Photographic Relationships

Bearman (1995) suggests that the context for photographs should be examined through their relationships with information categories. These categories include the object “in itself,” in time (its creator, collection, ownership, and collecting history), in place (its association with people, events, and locations), within the realm of ideas (its subject, association with other categories, and its embodiment of abstract ideas), and as part of a whole. While he discusses how these attributes of cultural heritage objects can be described using Categories for the Description of Works of Art, the photograph’s relationships may also be examined to determine values for appraisal. Bearman (1995) concludes, “Because documentation is frequently not explicit about relationships that are evident from the context in which they are mentioned...it may be necessary to analyze source materials to expose these relationships” (298).

Schwartz (1995) stresses that the study of a photograph must take into account the “terms of its relationships with the persons concurring in its formation” who created “mediated representation of reality; the product of a series of decisions; created by a will, for a purpose, to convey a message to an audience” (55). Diplomatics is “the study of the creation, form, and transmission of records, and their relationship to the facts represented in them and to their creator, in order to identify, evaluate, and commutate their nature and authenticity” through “refined notions of what constitutes authority, authenticity, purpose, and the extrinsic and intrinsic elements” of the record (Pearce-Moses 2005; Barlett 1996, 488). Diplomatics applied to historical photographs may “provide elasticity as well as rigor to both professional research and application by archivists” (Bartlett 1996, 486). Employed in appraisal, diplomatics encourages the identification of context, authorship, intentionality, and audience, since “rules of cultural and technical production do govern their creation” (Schwartz 1995, 57). By shifting from the content to the context of the photograph, “diplomatics has the potential to shed new light on both informational and evidential value and thus increase visual literacy” (Schwartz 1995, 42). Additionally, a photograph’s physical form helps convey its message; for instance, the stereograph’s format “determined the circumstances and way in which the image was viewed” (Schwartz 1995, 58). Image formats, photographic processes, and sizes convey meanings that should be considered during appraisal.

Intrinsic and Artifactual Values

Beyond evidential and informational values, intrinsic and artifactual values should also be appraised. Intrinsic value is the significance of an item derived from its physical or associational qualities (based on its relationship to an individual, family, organization, place, or event), inherent in its original form and generally independent of its informational or evidential value. Artifactual value is the significance of an item based on its physical or aesthetic characteristics, rather than its intellectual content. Records with intrinsic value have qualities that make their original physical form “the only archivally acceptable form for preservation” (Westney 2007, 6). These characteristics may include aesthetic quality, content, usage, market value, unique physical features, age, or scarcity. Vogt-O’Connor (2006) writes that images with strong artifactual and informational or evidential values are:

by far the most heavily used images in most repositories. High artifactual value is what historians, teachers, and students, as well as curators, designers, exhibit curators, filmmakers, publishers, and web designers, look for in photographs, particularly for images to reproduce, exhibit, or publish (126).

Intrinsic and artifactual values determine whether photographs should receive conservation treatment in their original format or should be reformatted as a copy, and if special security or access protections are needed (Vogt-O’Connor 2006).

Photographic Appraisal Criteria

In reviewing the pertinent criteria for the appraisal of photographs, Charbonneau (2005) determines that subject, quality, age, originality, documentation, aesthetics, and accessibility affect appraisal decisions. User needs and the intentions of the participants in the creation of photographs also contribute to the appraisal process. Participants include the photographer, the individual or group photographed, the customer or sponsor of the photography shoot, the technician, and the individual who gathers and documents the photographs. In his experience as director of the Centre d’archives de Montréal, Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, Charbonneau notes that users of photographic archives are not interested in evidential value, but “look for specific information. If by chance they are curious about a photograph’s provenance (in order to include it in the reference for a picture), they are rarely particularly interested in the context in which it was created” (121).

The Australian Archives has also developed specific criteria for photographic appraisal, which includes research value, cost, identifying information, quality, and quantity (Ballard and Teakle 1991). Research value usually depends upon the subject of the record, which is elevated if the subject is “essential to the interpretation or understanding of related records which have been appraised as having long-term value or has a high intrinsic value” (45). Subjects that influence research value include people, work, and social activities; objects; and natural phenomena; as well as known or important photographers. Cost also affects appraisal, with research value balanced against preservation expenses. Identifying information encompasses subjects, dates, locations, individual names, and photographers; provenance often supplements missing information. Quality highlights the photograph’s evidential, informational, aesthetic, intrinsic, and artifactual values, while quantity refers to uniqueness of the subjects depicted.

Appraisal criteria can be applied not only during acquisition, but also throughout the photograph’s lifecycle. New York Public Library’s Picture Collection is the largest collection of images held at a public library in the world, with user requests primarily based on subject. Selecting only 15% of the collection to be digitized, the library’s criteria incorporated local interests, collection strengths, educational purposes, and how the project would complement further developments of the physical and virtual collections (Chen 2004). Appraising photographs in this manner resulted in a 30,000-item digital collection that supplemented the physical collection and reached an international community.

Moving from the Edge to the Center

John Szarkowski, quoted in Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1977), states “Photography is a system of visual editing…It is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite” (192). Archival appraisal, like photography, is a skilled process of selecting among an almost unlimited number of records to preserve. The identification of archival values, the establishment of criteria, and the development of appraisal tools occur with all record formats, but are especially important for photographs, which have traditionally been marginalized in archives. To preserve photographic evidence, archivists must reposition themselves from the picture edge to its center, focusing on archival values, appraisal criteria, and institutional mandates, while responding to their users’ pursuit of knowledge.

Works Cited

Ballard, C. & Teakle, R. (1991). Seizing the light: The appraisal of photographs. Archives and Manuscripts 19(1), 43-49.

Bartlett, N. (1996). Diplomatics for photographic images: Academic exoticism? American Archivist 59(4), 486-494.

Bearman, D. (1995). Data relationships in the documentation of cultural objects. Visual Resources 11, 289-299.

Boles, F. (2005). Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Brown, M. W. (1971). The history of photography as art history. Art Journal 31(1), 31-36.

Burgin, V. (1982). Looking at photographs. In Burgin, V. (Ed.), Thinking photography. (pp. 142-153). London: Macmillan.

Charbonneau, N. (2005). The selection of photographs. Archivaria 59, 119-138.

Chen, L. S. (2004). From Picture Collection to Picture Collection Online. Collection Building 23(3), 139-146.

Cook, T. (1980) The tyranny of the medium: A comment on “total archives.” Archivaria 9, 141-149.

Craig, B. (2004). Archival appraisal: Theory and practice. Munich: K. G. Saur Verlag.

Ericson, T. L. (1991). At the “rim of creative dissatisfaction”: Archivists and acquisition development. Archivaria 33, 66-77.

Fraser, M. (1981). Problems presented by photographic collections. South African Libraries 48(4), 139-143.

Greene, M. A. (1998). From village smithy to superior vacuum technology: Modern small-records and the collecting repository. Archival Issues 23(1), 41-57.

Ham, F. G. (1993). Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Humphreys, K. (1993). Looking backwards: History, nostalgia, and American photography. American Literary History 5(4), 686-699.

Huyda, R. J. (1977). Photographs and archives in Canada. Archivaria 5, 3-16.

Kaplan, E., & Mifflin, J. (2000). “Mind and sight”: Visual literacy and the archivist. In R. C. Jimerson (Ed.) American archival studies: Readings in theory and practice. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Leary, W. H. (1985). The archival appraisal of photographs: A RAMP study with guidelines. Paris: UNESCO. Accessed on November 13, 2018 from unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000637/063749eo.pdf

Mifflin, J. (2007). Visual archives in perspective: Enlarging on historical medical photographs. American Archivist 70(1), 32-69.

Millar, R. (1999). The little collection that could: Building an online index to historical photos. Art Libraries Journal 24(3), 25-29.

Murphy, J. L. (2003). Link it or lump it: Basic access strategies for digital art representation. Journal of Library Administration 39(2/3), 139-160.

O’Toole, J. M., & Cox, R. J. (2006). Understanding archives & manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Pearce-Moses, R. (2005). A glossary of archival and records terminology. Retrieved on October 21, 2018 from archivists.org/glossary/index.asp

SAA Task Force on Goals and Priorities. (1986). Planning for the archival profession: A report of the SAA Task Force on Goals and Priorities. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Sassoon, J. (2007). Beyond chip monks and paper tigers: Towards a new culture of archival format specialists. Archival Science 7, 133-145.

Schellenberg, T. R. (1965). The management of archives. New York: Columbia University Press.

Schlak, T. (2008). Framing photographs, denying archives: The difficulty of focusing on archival photographs. Archival Science 8, 85-101.

Schwartz, J. M. (1995). “We make our tools and our tools make us”: Lessons from photographs from the practice, politics and poetics of diplomatics. Archivaria 40, 40-74.

Schwartz, J. M. (2002). Coming to terms with photographs: Descriptive standards, linguistic ‘othering,’ and the margins of archivy. Archivaria 54, 142-171.

Schwartz, J. M. (2004). Negotiating the visual turn: New perspectives on images and archives. American Archivist 67(1), 107-122.

Sontag, S. (1977). On photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Szarkowski, J. (1966). The photographer’s eye. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Excerpt retrieved on November 28, 2018 from thinkartmakeart.com/thephotoeye.htm

Taylor, H. A. (1979). Documentary art and the role of the archivist. American Archivist 42(4), 417-428.

Vogt-O’Connor, D. (2006) Appraisal and Acquisitions. In Ritzenthaler, M. L., & Vogt-O’Connor, D. (Eds.), Photographs: Archival care and management. (pp. 78-133). Chicago: Society of American Archivists.

Westney, L. C. (2007). Intrinsic value and the permanent record: The preservation conundrum. OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives 23(1), 5-12.

Woll, J. (2005). User access to digital image collections of cultural heritage materials: The thesaurus as pass-key. Art Documentation 24(2), 19-28.

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Tracking Progress of Archival Projects

Tracking is the process by which archival project progress is measured to ensure that changes to the schedule are tackled promptly. The starting point for tracking progress in archival projects is the project baseline schedule and other plan documents devised and accepted when key stages are fixed before implementation. The project baseline should remain unchanged throughout the project, and it’s the guide against which variances are identified.

Team members need to know where their efforts fit into the larger project, how they’re doing compared to other team members, and how the team fares compared to initial project estimates. Ensure that processes are in place to allow team members to perform tasks and update their own progress on individual tasks. Project managers should view overall project status, adjust the plan as needed, document actions and decisions, and calculate metrics that may improve the accuracy of estimates for future projects.

Micromanaging is the Devil’s Work

While project managers must track progress in archival projects, they should resist micromanaging their team. It lowers morale, fosters dependence, or discourages growth. Regardless of the intent, micromanaging tells team members that there’s a lack of faith in their ability to do their work. The only times project managers may need to closely manage are when the archival project is behind schedule or when a team member isn’t doing his or her job.

The worst part of micromanaging is the emotional toll. It’s exhausting for the person doing it, and it causes team members to resent the micromanager. Have faith that team members will be able to deal with the details of their work—and focus on tracking the overall progress of the archival project.

Communication is Key

Communicate with the team regularly. Don’t wait to do this in project status meetings. Talk to individuals before meetings so you’re prepared to deliver the right message. If project managers check in randomly yet continually, the team is conditioned to move forward without prodding.

Search for progress updates from the team. If a task is supposed to begin, ask the team member to confirm it did. If a task is finishing within a week, check its progress. Many project managers make the mistake of waiting until the project status meeting to check how things are progressing. What some find is that nothing has occurred since the previous status meeting—and now an entire week has been lost.

Set the Pace

Assume that the plan is set appropriately. The schedule will expand and contract based on early and late dates, and the project plan should be flexible enough to accommodate these variables. If tasks are finished early, continue the momentum by notifying team members to start the next task early. If it’s finishing late, talk with team members to make sure they are ready to do the next piece of work as soon as it ends, so that minimal time is lost.

Track Status, Time, Budget Consistently

Keep track of the information that will be most useful later. Track the cost of the project and the amount of effort spent, usually noted as hours devoted to each task or expenses accrued. Tracking process involves measurement of things that happened during the project, such as the number of review cycles. These metrics can include variance measurements, such as how far over or under budget the project is, or how far ahead of (or behind) the estimated schedule. The output is the capacity of the finished project, such as the number of digitized images in a mass digitization project.

Be diligent in keeping current with the status of the plan. Record actual hours spent and other measures appropriate to the project. Knowing what was projected regarding time, money, and scope versus actual metrics allows project managers to hone their estimation skills. Tracking progress in archival projects helps archivists develop into even better archival project managers.

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How to Define Archival Project Roles

Projects enable archivists to undertake roles that differ from their usual positions and are training grounds for leadership. Team members likely have other responsibilities in addition to their work on the archival project. Identify gaps in skills or resources, and then begin to locate people to resolve staffing issues. Determining basic team member roles up front allows projects to move forward with vision and vigor.

Bringing People Together

Creating a high-performing team is an essential skill for a project manager. Team management activities depend on where the team is in the project timeline. Managing on day one looks different than how it seems halfway through the project—or at the end. The evolution of skills determines how to establish roles within the team to maximize its efficiency. It also identifies opportunities to cultivate team members’ capabilities.

Roles evolve as teams work together. One person may have an aptitude for troubleshooting, while another might enjoy planning meetings. Some team members may have latent talents they’re not even aware of, that may develop as the archival project unfolds. Cultivate these capacities. Project managers capitalize on these diverse skills by delegating tasks to the people who enjoy doing them; this enriches everyone’s experiences and build ownership into the project.

Delegating Responsibility

A responsibility matrix, also known as a RACI matrix, identifies roles within a project and their associated responsibilities. Using the matrix to define archival project roles helps avoid communication breakdowns because everyone involved can see whom to contact for each activity.

Those marked “responsible” do the work. “Accountable” members are the decisionmakers. People denoted “consult” must be conferred with before the work begins and serve as a point of information for the activity’s resources. Team members who are indicated to “inform” need to be kept abreast of an activity’s completion.

It’s possible for a role to serve in multiple categories. For example, the metadata specialist for a historical documents digitization project could have both the ‘accountable’ and ‘consult’ attributes on an activity. The ‘accountable’ responsibility, however, should be assigned only to one role per action because multiple roles shouldn’t make decisions on each assignment.

Balancing Archival Project Workloads

Assess whether staffing seems adequate for the tasks and whether the contributors involved are capable of the work. For each person, check to see that he or she isn’t assigned more responsibility than seems right. The team should share the work equally by defining roles for team members. The project’s scope may require a range of skills that one person is unlikely to have.

Better Decision-Making

Brainstorming is a good example of interactive teamwork to generate ideas and solve problems. A small team can create many options; a suggestion from one person can stimulate ideas from the others. The selected choice should then have the support and commitment of the team, who will collectively share the risk of the decision. Teams tend to make better decisions than the team members would make individually with the same information. Exchanging ideas stimulate creativity and innovation.

Champion Teammates

If you’re an archival project manager, define archival project roles then try to recruit people who believe the project is crucial—because they’ll be predisposed to concentrate on achieving goals. Create occasions for team members to get to know each other, through off-site trips, lunches, or other activities, giving people chances to become friendly. Doing so will help them find a basis for collaboration.

Engage members in activities that interest them and keep them focused on results. Recognize the contributions of members to make them feel appreciated and part of the group. Acknowledge the value of diversity and celebrate how team members each serve the common goal. Unique skills and insights contribute to the success of the archival project.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

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How to Build a Successful Archival Project Team

Archival project managers can create highly functional teams that embrace change, honor individual diversity and contributions, and demonstrate good faith and goodwill. There are many aspects of team-building to consider, including the fundamentals of team size and composition.

The most advantageous size for a team depends on the archival project’s goals and tasks. The right size depends on how many people are needed to perform work required for the project, its complexity, and whether a variety of technical expertise is necessary.

If the archival project team is too small, it may not have the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of the project. The odds of conflict increase with the number of people in the team. Large teams can be unwieldy and are sometimes unable to collect everyone’s contribution. The team may find communication and cooperation difficult. The team also needs a balance of personalities. Recruit as many people as needed to get the job done.

Building Teams Throughout the Project

During the initiation phase, roles and responsibilities must be set, even if some of the team members who will fulfill those roles are unassigned. Search for team members who want to join the archival project, bearing in mind how the individuals would work together. What will be the project’s values and rules? The culture may change as project managers bring others onto the team in later phases, but it’s a good idea to spend time thinking about this now.

As the project progresses, the team rallies and the real effort of team building starts. Until now, the primary relationships will be between the archives project manager and each team member, which puts much responsibility on the project manager. Project managers know the individuals better than they know each other, so team members will come to them for help and guidance instead of going to each other. Project managers have two responsibilities: getting to know the individuals better, and helping them to get to know each other.

Team Building for Successful Archival Projects

Team building occurs as people work together on the project. Over time, team members form alliances and make friends. However, even the most extroverted people experience anxiety early in the process as they wonder how well the team will work together. Use team building activities to help alleviate this initial reticence by sharing experiences, expectations, and goals. Team members are also interested in how their teammates are doing. If one teammate seems overworked or stressed, another team member may relieve his or her workload.

When Archival Project Teams are Dispersed

Teams with dispersed members present some challenges for a project manager. Project managers also have a role in protecting the interests of the team at the home institution. Project managers with international responsibilities must educate team members on how to work well together— and also have to manage upward and ensure that executive stakeholders understand the constraints of this type of project.

Special Considerations in International Archival Projects

International projects take longer and entail higher travel costs than projects where the team is colocated, and that isn’t always a message welcomed by the senior management team. I remember once working on a project that depended on a critical, time-sensitive deliverable from an affiliate in Phnom Penh. What hadn’t been calculated was that work was scheduled during a public holiday for Cambodia, during which we wouldn’t hear back from our colleagues for weeks. Successful archival project teams find alternatives to solve problem while they wait.

I also was once a project manager for a project that required contacting art museums, historical repositories, and archives across Europe during the summer. I scrambled to schedule much of the work during June and July, with the understanding that in August, I wouldn’t hear back from anyone and should focus on other aspects of the project. Once September rolled around, everyone returned from their holidays, and the project resumed its regular schedule.

Building Team Culture

Even small organizations can work internationally by outsourcing partners overseas; that still means archival project managers face the challenges of managing multicultural teams. For international projects, team members may have different rules and expectations about behavior. For example, the importance of being on time varies from culture to culture, as do many other aspects of work. Making these expectations explicit in the beginning helps to alleviate potential conflicts. Negotiating a team culture is essential for ensuring mutual respect and understanding among team members.

While archival projects with an international element present challenges, teams based in the same country can find themselves working across different time zones. Even if project managers don’t have this problem, they could still find it challenging to manage a project team split across several locations.

Making Room for Part-time Team Members

Often, archival projects need part-time employees to help with the project. Having team members available only for specific periods can make it difficult to schedule regular team meetings and one-on-one meetings. In the worst-case scenario, part-time members may not attend meetings, because they aren’t scheduled to be working at that time. They may find that their other responsibilities limit their involvement.

Even team members who work on a project on a full-time basis could have a different functional manager. While they might be working on the project for a period, team members in this situation are likely to have responsibilities for their original team. These are moments where archival project managers will have to negotiate with their supervisor to find the best possible solution for getting work completed.

High-Performing Archival Project Teams

Project teams don’t have the luxury of a couple of months of adjustment. In a project environment, teams are expected to start reaching milestones and delivering tasks after the kick-off meeting. Sponsors think that teams will automatically gel, but experienced project managers know that this is rarely the case. With empathy and creativity, as mentioned, archival project managers can create highly functional teams that embrace change, honor individual diversity and contributions, and demonstrate good faith and goodwill.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

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Reappraisal and Deaccessioning

This literature review examines reappraisal and deaccessioning as discussed in three Archival Issues articles about multi-year projects conducted at large institutions. After describing the projects, I offer a critical assessment, exploring reappraisal and deaccessioning experiences that can better inform archivists considering such undertakings.

A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology defines reappraisal as “the process of identifying materials that no longer merit preservation and that are candidates for deaccessioning” due to flawed original appraising, collection policy modifications, or changes in the records’ perceived value (Pearce-Moses). The glossary defines deaccessioning as “the process by which an archives, museum, or library permanently removes accessioned materials from its holdings.” These records may be returned to donors, transferred to other institutions, or destroyed.

Reappraisal may lead to deaccessioning, but not always. Conversely, deaccessioning often results from reappraisal, as well as other reasons. Deaccessioning is not weeding, or the removal of unwanted documents during processing; rather, it removes entire series, collections, or record groups from a repository.

In “I’ve Deaccessioned and Lived to Tell about It: Confessions of an Unrepentant Reappraiser,” Mark A. Greene discusses how the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming regularly performs reappraisal and deaccessioning based on comprehensive analysis of major collecting areas.[1] Greene reports that 60 percent of deaccessioned records were placed at other repositories, while 20 percent were returned to donors (p. 11).

Caryn Wojcik explores reappraising government record backlogs at the State Archives of Michigan in “Appraisal, Reappraisal, and Deaccessioning.” The archivists ranked government agencies by their potential to produce archival records, similar to the Minnesota Method of appraising modern business records.[2] They constructed an appraisal mission statement, criteria, mechanics, and methodology, which they applied against the backlog.  

In “Reappraising and Reaccessioning Wisconsin State Government Records: An Agency-wide Approach,” Helmut M. Knies discusses a four-year project to reduce Wisconsin Historical Society’s collection by 40 percent.[3] The archivists approached the records by agency, rather than by series, assuring that the project “eliminated the records of no single agency in toto, and as a general practice deaccessioned entire series only rarely” (p. 36). Knies describes the “almost archaeological quality” of constructing a “genealogy” the agencies in the context of their antecedents, related agencies, and administrative and regulatory functions (p. 36, 39).

The articles advised that a strategic reappraisal and deaccessioning plan was needed to avoid the possibility of negative reactions from resource allocators, peer institutions, donors, researchers, and colleagues. Reappraisal and deaccessioning are controversial because the archives symbolize permanence, and archivists view themselves as impartial guardians of the past, which are both illusions. Greene writes, “We have inadvertently weakened our repositories and our professional standing by our unwillingness and lack of action,” and the profession is difficult “not because we are good at saving things, but because we are able and willing to decide what does not get saved” (p. 8, 11).

He also notes that the professional literature rarely discusses reappraisal and deaccessioning.[4] [5] For instance, Terry Cook’s 2000 appraisal bibliography reports that 3.5 percent of the listings were about these topics.[6] Some articles inadvertently discuss it, such as Timothy Ericson’s 1991 article “‘At the Rim of Creative Dissatisfaction’: Archivists and Acquisitions Development,” which urges archivists to define “collecting focus” for better acquisitions (p. 66). Wojcik used reappraisal strategies to define why records were preserved (the “collecting focus”) at the State Archives of Michigan.

Greene believes that archivists avoid reappraisal because reconsidering past decisions may dramatically change their collections. Wojcik reports fiery debates among her own colleagues regarding reevaluation for this reason. She writes, “The goal of these projects was not to influence a radical shift in the State Archives’ collecting practices (the scope and purpose of the collection), but to document why certain records were preserved and others were not” (p. 154). Additionally, the staff questioned reevaluating past decisions, when the backlog was believed to contain many records of marginal value. Greene writes:

Gerry Ham, who issued a famous jeremiad against archivist becoming “nothing more than a weathervane moved by the changing winds of historiography,” a decade later embraced reappraisal and deaccessioning as a “creative and sophisticated” act “that will permit holdings to be refined and strengthened. It allows archivists to replace records of lesser value with collections of more significance, and it prevents the imposition of imperfect and incomplete decisions of the past on the future.” (Ham, p. 13, as cited in Greene, p. 9).

Interestingly enough, space seems to be the catalyst for reluctant archivists to reappraise, as in the case of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which outgrew its repository. Since the 1950s, the Wisconsin state government became a “profusion of regulatory functions, the concurrent proliferation of bureaucratic systems, and the resultant explosion of records” (p. 36). Knies describes how the collection increased based on appraisal policies that were reevaluated during reappraisal. The “Wisconsin Way” of accessioning public records while also soliciting manuscripts with “expansive and sometimes even exhaustive” documentation dates from the mid-nineteenth century (p. 37). He writes:

One finds appraisals in the archival case files describing both the content and context of records series and assigning values for acquisitions decisions that derive from the larger collecting interests of the Historical Society’s manuscripts holdings and its North American history library. For example, these [appraisal values give] primary significance to the records’ contribution to potential researchers’ understanding of topics of health, welfare, economics, crime and punishment, social mores and others. Only secondarily would the appraisal credit the importance of how the records defined the original regulatory function (p. 38).[7]

Additionally, the public record appraisal process evaluated “individual series one at time, largely out of context, and without any supporting records management structure” (p. 37).

Similarly, Wojcik describes factors—a larger facility, professional staff increase, and vague appraisal criteria—that contributed to the considerable backlog at the State Archives of Michigan. Archivists accessioned records that were not scheduled for preservation due to poor quality retention and disposal schedules developed by records management services. Archivists also accessioned anything with potential value, planning to weed them during processing.

Whatever the circumstances, reappraisal and deaccessioning are useful tools for preserving records of enduring value when used strategically rather than on a case-by-case basis. Reappraisal and deaccessioning should be “public and transparent … as normal a part of standard archives administration as cataloging and reference” (Greene, p. 8). Wojcik noted that reappraisal and deaccessioning guidelines built trust with state agencies to transfer records to the State Archives of Michigan. Knies’ project was touted to stakeholders as a way to reduce costs, although it was one of many benefits. Greene observed that donors supported deaccessioning as a tool to improve access for researchers using their records.

The articles presented reappraisal and deaccessioning projects as beneficial to archives. The goals of the projects were to make deaccessioning consistent across all collections; construct better guidelines for acquisitions, appraisal, reappraisals, and deaccessioning; achieve greater intellectual and physical control over the records; and understand why records were preserved. Materials of marginal value are deaccessioned before valuable time is invested in processing them. Archivists may then concentrate their efforts solely on records with confirmed archival value. Knies was the only author to review the success of the project after its completion. Seven years later, he notes that paper records are no longer a problem as they once were because of the growth of technology. The larger problem we face is a decline in the quality of records being captured for transfer, as well as missing documentation that exists primarily in electronic form. However, this is another issue for the professional literature to debate.

 Works Cited

American Association of Museums. (1994). Code of Ethics for Museums. (Washington, DC: American Association of Museums).

Ericson, T. (1991) ‘At the rim of creative dissatisfaction’: Archivists and acquisitions development. Archivaria, 33, 66-77.

Greene, M. A. (2006). I’ve deaccessioned and lived to tell about it: Confessions of an unrepentant reappraiser. Archival Issues, 30(1), 7-22.

Ham, F. G. (1984). Archival choices: Managing the historical record in the age of abundance. American Archivist, 47(1), 11-22.

Knies, H. M. (2006). Reappraising and reaccessioning Wisconsin state government records: An agency-wide approach. Archival Issues, 30(1), 35-43.

Pearce-Moses, R. (2005). A glossary of archival and records terminology. (Chicago: Society of American Archivists) Retrieved February 5, 2019, from Society of American Archivists Web site: http://www.archivists.org/glossary/in...

Wojcik, C. (2002). Appraisal, reappraisal, and deaccessioning. Archival Issues, 27(2), 151-160.

End Notes

[1] Greene wrote an earlier article on institutionalizing reappraisal and deaccessioning: Greene, M. A. (2002). What WERE we thinking? Embracing reappraisal and deaccessioning as a collection management tool. Provenance, 20, 33-49.

[2] Wojcik writes, “[The Minnesota Method] article contained appraisal criteria that focused on the content of a record (the reasons it is created and the information it contains) versus the physical characteristics of the record (completeness, preservability, etc.). This example of appraisal criteria provided a model for the team to follow” (p. 155). See Greene, M. A. (1998). ‘The surest proof’: A utilitarian approach to appraisal. Archivaria, 45(2), 127-169.

[3] Knies notes that the daily activities of the project was summarized in Mattern, C. J. (2002, Fall) Discard all items past their prime. Presentation at the biennial meeting of the Midwest Archives Conference, Rapid City, SD.

[4] Greene lists a selected archival reappraisal bibliography including three articles mentioned by Knies and Wojcik. Leonard’s article generated so much controversy that an entire issue of American Archivist was devoted to reappraisal in 1984; the strongest response was from Benedict. 

Benedict, K. (1984). Invitation to a bonfire: Reappraisal and deaccessioning of records as collection management tools in an archives—A reply to Leonard Rapport. American Archivist, 47(1), 43-  49.

Ham, F. G. (1984). Archival choices: Managing the historical record in the age of abundance. American Archivist, 47(1), 11-22.

Leonard, R. (1981). No grandfather clause: Reappraising accessioned records. American Archivist, 44(2), 143-150.

[5] Greene notes that museums and libraries are more forthright about deaccessioning than archives, guided by the recommendations of their professional organizations. For example, American Association of Museums states, “Deaccessioning is part of a long-term, thoughtful decision on the part of the museum about how to best fulfill its mission with available resources” (American Association of Museums, p. 8-9, as cited in Greene, p. 12).

[6] Greene notes that a version of the bibliography is in: Boles, F. (2005). Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 159-183.  

[7] The Wisconsin Way of appraisal seems to prioritize the informational value above evidential value of the records, as discussed in: Schellenberg, T. R. (1956). The appraisal of modern public records. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off. 

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Managing Expectations for Archival Projects

Delivering a project on time, on budget, and with quality doesn’t always mean it’s successful. And even if expectations of cost and speed are met—or were unrealistic—stakeholders are the final judges of the project. In their eyes, the project may be late, over budget, or inferior quality.

Differing perceptions may seem unfair, but the good news is, miscommunication is preventable. Recognizing that the feelings of others define a project’s success is an incentive to make sure that all stakeholders agree on the basics. Setting realistic expectations with the project’s stakeholders is essential. Make sure to deliver the promised project, on time, and within budget.

Clarifying Mutual Expectations

One of the first tips for archives project managers is to ensure that stakeholders will believe a project is successful. Archives project managers must continually manage expectations because it keeps hopes in line with the project’s goals, objectives, and requirements. Otherwise, a stakeholder’s definition of success will differ from the team’s. As a result, the project will be a failure in their eyes even if it follows the project management plan.

One of the most beneficial (yet often neglected) activities in archival projects is clarifying mutual expectations with stakeholders. For instance, stakeholders expect project managers to:

Understand their business needs

Appreciate their priorities for cost, time, and scope of the project

Be capable of looking at the project from their perspective

Keep them informed of progress and changes

Archives project managers expect stakeholders to:

Speak about their needs, not solutions

Articulate requirements in the process as early as possible

Supply information necessary to do the job

Minimize changes to the project

Many people assume they’ll know what the other parties are going to do, how they’ll behave, and what they’ll deliver. When expectations are unclear, it results in rework, poor relationships, misunderstandings, and dissatisfaction.

Be Curious

Another tip for archives project managers is to discover what stakeholders expect by meeting with them individually. Since this is time-consuming, limit meetings to the most important stakeholders. If there are differences between what’s expected and what’s anticipated, archives project managers should resolve those differences as soon as possible.

Conversely, project managers can also express what’s anticipated from stakeholders. However, some project managers have trouble expressing their expectations to members of management. Bear in mind that stating expectations doesn’t mean that project managers are telling them what to do or how to act. If project managers express themselves correctly, it should be a description of support needed rather than a prescription for behavior.

What to Expect from Team Members

The archives project manager’s assumptions and responses to questions and situations set the tone for the project. In addition, team members come to the project with assumptions and needs of their own. When setting up the team, it’s essential to identify such expectations and to ensure that the team focuses on the same objectives and has the same expectations about the project.

Agree upon rules for communication between team members and with senior management, functional groups, users, and other employees. There should also be expectations for behavior, especially about how to handle conflicts and disagreements within the team. Team members should also agree on expectations for the percentage of available work time that each person will devote to the project, the relationship of the project to other priorities, and the hierarchy within the team.

Establish the team’s performance objectives as they relate to project requirements and expected benefits—which comprise the success criteria for assessing archives project outcomes. Examples of these performance objectives include deadlines that must be met and quality standards for the products of the archival project.

Exceed Expectation and Deliver Excellence

Managing expectations within the team leads to better team building. It’s ideal to have the team determine their rules, since they best understand their individual needs. For example, they can agree on the start and stop times for workdays or when documents should be made available for review before meetings. The pursuit of a common approach includes how to debate and establish expectations for what each person brings to the working environment.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Stakeholder Management in Archival Projects

People are fundamental to every aspect of an archival project. They commission projects, provide resources, support (or challenge) projects, and produce results. People deliver projects as managers and team members, and others influence projects as sponsors and archival project stakeholders. How people behave and feel about the project influences its success.

Who is an Archival Project Stakeholder?

A stakeholder has an interest in a project’s outcome. Although the users and the sponsor are the most important people to please, a project is considered successful if it satisfies most, if not all, stakeholders.

Stakeholders influence a project throughout its life cycle and contribute to its success. During planning, they help in defining objectives, requirements, and constraints; identify strategies; and provide funding. During implementation, stakeholders do the work, resolve issues, decide whether changes are necessary, and control the budget.

Stakeholder management is important for successful archival projects. To identify stakeholders, pay attention to the individuals who will be affected by the project’s outcomes: the contributors of resources—including people, space, time, tools, and money—and the beneficiaries of the project’s output. Each is a stakeholder in the project.

Types of Stakeholders

In archival projects, users are stakeholders. They are the recipients of the project deliverables.

As stakeholders, functional managers are not necessarily affiliated with a project team, nor are they involved in the everyday management of the project. Functional managers are resource providers for the team and can affect the project’s success.

Another type of stakeholder is a subject matter expert. They are authorities having specialized knowledge on certain aspects of the project. Subject matter experts supply advice to projects on an as-needed basis. They ensure that the teams that they work with gain the information and insight needed to get the job done. Subject matter experts can span projects, allowing them to share knowledge across a multitude of efforts.

The Role of the Sponsor

As senior executives, project sponsors shepherd projects to success. The sponsor champions the benefits of the project, accepts responsibility for funding and budget statuses, concurs with the project requirements, and is knowledgeable about planned and actual results. They assist their teams in resolving organizational impediments to success. They work with project managers to ensure a smooth transition from project start to completion. Experienced project managers aim to provide executive involvement by forging relationships with their sponsors. There is little a project manager won’t share with her or his project sponsor. In turn, by addressing challenging project issues and concerns as they arise, sponsors hedge risk and improve outcomes.

Stakeholder Management in Large Projects

For complex projects like the building or renovation of an archives facility, several project teams may be formed to move the process forward. Representatives from the governing authority, the board of trustees, the administration and staff, friends groups, and community interest groups may be part of this collective.

Usually, a smaller working group is formed within the larger group of stakeholders to hasten the process, and their decisions are brought back to the larger group for review and approval. It’s vital that only one person—usually the project manager—speaks for the entire organization in dealing with consultants and contractors during the design and building process.

Power Dynamics

Stakeholder relationships are functional rather than hierarchical. Although the sponsor will be higher-ranking than the project manager, little else can be assumed about the seniority of other team members. Subject matter experts or technical specialists have skills based on years of experience and are often senior to the project manager.

For effective stakeholder management, the project manager must consider the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the project, their influence on the organization, and their authority levels. Understanding a stakeholder’s stance can help the project manager gather requirements and manage the stakeholder more effectively.

Stakeholders make or break projects. Some have concerns but no power. Others may be supportive but lack rank. The opposite is also true: important individuals may be the champions or naysayers for the archival project. Project managers need to know whom they can trust for support, but they also want to know who may cause them to lose traction. In my experience as an archivist and consultant, I’ve seen ill-planned projects forge ahead because of executive support. I’ve also seen them torpedoed by low-ranking employees with high political power.

Keep Up with Stakeholder Changes

In the course of a project, key archival project stakeholders who are supporters or antagonists may change, and understanding their attitudes and interests is essential in continuing a project. Effective stakeholder management requires the project manager to create a strategy that can keep up with these changes and also satisfies those with high power within the organization.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

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Developing Leadership Skills with Archival Projects

Project managers are expected to be both good managers and leaders. Leadership is one of the most critical competencies a project manager must have. Leadership in archival projects is demonstrated through setting the vision for the project and supporting strategy, and creating a shared vision with the team. Archival leaders create an environment that encourages the best in team members, allowing them to develop and learn.

Archival project managers should be knowledgeable in all areas of authority for continuing success. The superficially charismatic manager, for example, may have initial appeal, but as problems arise that they aren’t able to resolve, their power will be undermined. The project manager’s ability is often assessed in regard to how well they influence the behavior of the project team members, and the effectiveness of a leader can be dependent on their power.

Overcoming No Authority

Archival project managers often have little formal authority. Even for project managers with some authority, contributors who report to other managers do portions of project work. Projects with no one in charge are almost certain to fail. Showing leadership in archival projects means that project leaders must assume control whether they possess the authority or not.

Most archival projects involve getting people to do added work on top of their regular operational duties. Project managers display leadership by facilitating decisions, persuading stakeholders, and using their influence to move the project forward. While most project managers cannot wield absolute power to get their way, they can define and role-model the style of behavior wanted from the team, motivate stakeholders, and listen, counsel, and mentor team members.

Influence Styles

To get desired results, archival project managers can use various influence types. They include legitimate influence, which is an authority based on their position within an organization. Similarly, referent influence is power that’s transferred from an executive (usually the project sponsor) to the project manager.Expert influence is clout based on a person’s ability or knowledge.Influence by reward is based on the ability to supply or withhold incentives. Lastly,coercive influence is based on intimidation. One hopes that this type of influence is only reserved for the toughest situations.

Depending on the circumstances, project managers can apply their different styles of influence to match their environment and the personalities of their team members.

Leadership and the Archival Profession

Unfortunately, there are few formal opportunities to develop leadership in archival projects within the profession. The Archives Leadership Institute (ALI), a program funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)—a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)—is the standout program. (As a former cohort member, I can attest to its transformational impact).

Leadership development can also happen at the regional, state, or local level, though these prospects can be limited.

Leadership can, however, be developed in the course of an archival project. I’ve found that there’s no better environment for sharpening archival leadership skills than projects. As a archival project manager or a team member, a project is a perfect opportunity to test emerging leadership skills. Projects, because of their temporary nature and opportunities for growth, are catalysts for achievement and excellence.

During a project, project managers, team members, and stakeholders exercise their problem-solving skills, being resourceful and creative in their approaches. Leadership qualities include drive, the ability to take risks, and a sense of the big picture.

Bold and Brave

Archival project managers must be committed to leading their team to success. At times, they must work without high-level support, with active resistance, or in the absence of signs that the project is even possible. Courageous leadership for archivists in the face of obstacles is required.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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