SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts &Archives · 47
Other factors include intellectual value (over and above anticipated use), monetary value, agreements with donors,
development opportunities, “appearance” to particular subsets of supporters, etc.
Processing for transfer to offsite storage.
Processing in preparation for monetary evaluation and the issuing of tax receipts for gifts-in-kind of private papers.
Application of provincial access and privacy legislation to university records.
Purchases are obviously always processed before donations.
RBSC: quality of material (33%).
The most important factor concerns donation, tax implications for the donor, and possible cultural property certification.
Donated archives and collections receive top priority.
Topic of collection is the other important factor in processing priorities. It seems to us use by graduate students
and scholars in the humanities has dropped off, and after talking to some scholars, we feel this is in part due to
the perception that our collection is more 19th century focused and 20th century topics are more widespread now.
Therefore, 20th century collections in certain topic areas are getting higher processing priority than say, another
collection of Civil War letters. This may also fall under “anticipated high use” or “patron demand” above. Collections
from the same or allied families for whom we already have processed materials are high priority, as are ones that we
have committed to a specific timeline for with donors, or for which donors have given money for processing.
We developed a scoring mechanism that numerically ranks each unprocessed collection according to a variety of
conditions and factors. Highest scores get processed first then we proceed down the line. New accessions are scored
every few years and integrated into the stream. Will include scoring sheet as addendum. There is a second mechanism
for processing collections bound for the Profiles in Science digital manuscripts program.
We occasionally receive cash gifts to fund processing when we accept a collection. This raises the priority for processing.
In order of importance, please briefly describe how the three most important factors you selected
above influence processing priorities. N=71
1st most important factor: 2nd most important factor: 3rd most important factor:
Anticipated high use Preservation risks Size of collection
Anticipated high use Response to patron demand Donor’s wishes
Anticipated high use -if we think there
will be a lot of call for the material,
the up-front investment saves us time
later and saves public services time
immediately since they can answer
questions more efficiently.
Response to patron demand -here’s
where the 1% from Public Services comes
in, since they can alert us to heavily used
collections.
Time commitment -if it’s small or easy
such that we can whip through it quickly
at the time of accession, we will do so.
Anticipated high use and great quality of
material
Institutional priorities -usually also allows
us to hire staff
Grant funding -to enable hiring of staff
Anticipated high use impacts priorities
and may cause a new accession to be
processed before an older accession.
Institutional priorities such as processing
collections that fill collection gaps or
collections that are at risk.
Preservation needs encourage quicker
processing.
Other factors include intellectual value (over and above anticipated use), monetary value, agreements with donors,
development opportunities, “appearance” to particular subsets of supporters, etc.
Processing for transfer to offsite storage.
Processing in preparation for monetary evaluation and the issuing of tax receipts for gifts-in-kind of private papers.
Application of provincial access and privacy legislation to university records.
Purchases are obviously always processed before donations.
RBSC: quality of material (33%).
The most important factor concerns donation, tax implications for the donor, and possible cultural property certification.
Donated archives and collections receive top priority.
Topic of collection is the other important factor in processing priorities. It seems to us use by graduate students
and scholars in the humanities has dropped off, and after talking to some scholars, we feel this is in part due to
the perception that our collection is more 19th century focused and 20th century topics are more widespread now.
Therefore, 20th century collections in certain topic areas are getting higher processing priority than say, another
collection of Civil War letters. This may also fall under “anticipated high use” or “patron demand” above. Collections
from the same or allied families for whom we already have processed materials are high priority, as are ones that we
have committed to a specific timeline for with donors, or for which donors have given money for processing.
We developed a scoring mechanism that numerically ranks each unprocessed collection according to a variety of
conditions and factors. Highest scores get processed first then we proceed down the line. New accessions are scored
every few years and integrated into the stream. Will include scoring sheet as addendum. There is a second mechanism
for processing collections bound for the Profiles in Science digital manuscripts program.
We occasionally receive cash gifts to fund processing when we accept a collection. This raises the priority for processing.
In order of importance, please briefly describe how the three most important factors you selected
above influence processing priorities. N=71
1st most important factor: 2nd most important factor: 3rd most important factor:
Anticipated high use Preservation risks Size of collection
Anticipated high use Response to patron demand Donor’s wishes
Anticipated high use -if we think there
will be a lot of call for the material,
the up-front investment saves us time
later and saves public services time
immediately since they can answer
questions more efficiently.
Response to patron demand -here’s
where the 1% from Public Services comes
in, since they can alert us to heavily used
collections.
Time commitment -if it’s small or easy
such that we can whip through it quickly
at the time of accession, we will do so.
Anticipated high use and great quality of
material
Institutional priorities -usually also allows
us to hire staff
Grant funding -to enable hiring of staff
Anticipated high use impacts priorities
and may cause a new accession to be
processed before an older accession.
Institutional priorities such as processing
collections that fill collection gaps or
collections that are at risk.
Preservation needs encourage quicker
processing.
