Bethany Havas MLIS 7999 Papers and Manuscripts Garaba, F. (2007).

The State of Archival Appraisal Practices in the ESARBICA Region. African Journal of Library, Archives & Information Science, 17(1), 59-63. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Garaba, a participant in the Information Studies Programme at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, writes about the problem in his region in which there is little standardization in appraisal practices. To define his scope, he focuses on the members of The Eastern and Southern African Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA). The author finds that the most common methods place value in either historical documents or those that are representative of the entire collection, but unqualified staff and the short tenure of archival personnel prohibit the methods from being applied reliably. Garaba recommends that archives establish appraisal standards to which they can adhere as part of a larger solution to the problem. His recommendation highlights the importance of correct and consistent appraisal practices to ensure the success of an archiving program. Gorzalski, M. (2008). Minimal Processing: Its Context and Influence in the Archival Community. Journal of Archival Organization, 6(3), 186-200. doi:10.1080/15332740802421915 Matt Gorzalski, MLIS, is a project archivist at the Kansas State Historical Society and thus has a personal interest in methods of expediting archival acquisitions and preventing a backlog of items from impeding the work of an archive. He contends that processing items less and appraising items more thoroughly immediately after acquisition is a viable method to prevent a large number of backlogged materials. Reappraisal can minimize an extant backlog by removing items that should not have been retained in the first place. The obvious effects of proper appraisal on the contents and condition of the archive show the importance of correct and efficient practices for archivists when it comes to evaluating the worth of incoming materials. Gutmann, M. P., Abrahamson, M., Adams, M. O., Altman, M., Arms, C., Bollen, K., . . . Young, C. H. (2009). From preserving the past to preserving the future: The data-PASS project and the challenges of preserving digital social science data. Library Trends, 57(3), 315337. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/220446747?accountid=14800 This article about the The Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS) includes contributions from sixteen authors, each of whom is involved in research and programs directly contributing to research and recordkeeping in the social sciences. Myron Gutmann, as the principle investigator for the project and main author, has high credentials as the director of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. The authors describe DataPASSs efforts to preserve data gathered from the social sciences, and describe the interesting challenge of appraising incoming data for archiving as the data is often involved in ongoing and active projects in the field. The article showcases the unique problems that archivists are beginning to see when it comes to determining the worth of digital materials.

Harvey, R., & Thompson, D. (2010). Automating the appraisal of digital materials. Library Hi Tech, 28(2), 313-322. doi:10.1108/07378831011047703 Ross Harvey has is a professor of information science programs and has written several books on preservation, including that of digital items. Dave Thompson is Digital Curator at the Wellcome Library in London and has been involved in national digital preservation projects. The authors describe the importance of developing new methods of appraising digitally-formatted documents to keep up with the flow of incoming electronic information, a sentiment that echoes the findings of Gutmann and Ramrez. Like Ramrez, Harvey and Thompson recognize the possibilities of automatic appraising technologies in the future and the importance of deep knowledge on the part of the appraiser to make effective judgments about how long the material will remain useful. In the future, academic librarians who increasingly work with digital data will need to enlist the assistance of archivists who are becoming versed in the management and use of digital archival documents. Huvila, I. (2008). Participatory archive: Towards decentralised curation, radical user orientation, and broader contextualisation of records management. Archival Science, 8(1), 15-36. doi:10.1007/s10502-008-9071-0 Isto Huvila is a researcher and lecturer at bo Akademi University in Turku, Finland and the University of Lund in Sweden, and his work focuses on fields of information work and information records management. Huvila recommends user-participatory archiving practices in which the archives managers handle more technical maintenance than appraisal. Instead of emphasizing preservation and the archival process, the author suggests that archives refocus on usability for researchers and share curatorial responsibilities with knowledgeable participants. While his recommendations to limit the archivists appraisal responsibilities altogether would give participants in the archive more context and perhaps a larger scope of materials, it is risky to the coherence of the collection for which proper appraisal is necessary. Kellams, D. (2008). University Archives They Only Hold the Official "Stuff," Right?. Indiana Libraries, 27(3), 30-33. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Dina Kellams is Associate Archivist in the Office of University Archives and Records Management at Indiana University Bloomington, and speaks from experience about the contents of their university archives. In contrast to other university archives that emphasize a collection of university institutional documents, the archives at Indiana University Bloomington makes an additional effort to collect personal documents from some students and faculty. Traditional appraisal may dismiss these items as frivolous, but Kellams contends that personal papers have value in their ability to provide a full scope of information about university life from the perspectives of the students and faculty who experienced it. To successfully curate these papers, the author recommends implementing specific appraisal guidelines for selecting personal documents, and she stresses the importance of publicizing the fact that the archive accepts informal and personal papers, so alumni and faculty may save these items before they are lost to time.

Linderman, E. (2009). Archives in Public Libraries. Public Libraries, 48(1), 46-51. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/217459156?accountid=14800 Eric Linderman is Adult Services Manager at Euclid Public Libraries in Ohio. He asserts that public libraries often see archives as the domain of academics and research-specific institutions, but many documents can be valuable to the public sphere. He gives a good example of how a public library might see fit to include local government meeting minutes for the review of the public, which would be of interest to citizens and may foster involvement in the community. As with any successful collection, material must be appraised within particular guidelines and restrictions to maintain records that will be useful to the public patron demographic. Lindermans article emphasizes the purpose of appraisal to determine value based on its worth to the user, whomever the user may be. Marquis, K., & Waggener, L. C. (2011). Historical collections. Public Libraries, 50(2), 42-49. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/861735937?accountid=14800 Kathy Marquis is Public Services Librarian at the Albany County Public Library and has experience as an archivist at four academic and research institutions, and Leslie Waggener has extensive archival experience for the American Heritage Center. In agreement with Lindermans article, the authors recommend that public libraries consider adding a historical collection or archive. These kinds of collections are not common in public libraries, but materials for genealogy or local history studies may be quite useful to the librarys demographic of users. Marquis and Waggener point out that, when appraising items for such a collection, public libraries must be aware of other collections in the community so they do not duplicate materials that are readily available to the public in other venues. Ramrez, M.,L. (2011). Whose role is it anyway?: A library practitioner's appraisal of the digital data deluge. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Online), 37(5), 21-23. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/870844498?accountid=14800 Marisa Ramrez is Digital Repository Librarian at California Polytechnic State University, which provides ample experiential knowledge on the acquisition, appraisal, and management of digital materials. Digital documents are becoming more prolific in this era of fast-paced technology, and they offer unique challenges to appraisers. As with any appraisal, it requires a depth of knowledge about the material itself. However, appraisal of the volume of digital materials is quite time consuming. Electronic formats might make automated appraisal a possibility for the future, but reliable automatic evaluation is not yet available. As physical items deteriorate and more items are digital-born, there will certainly be a need to regularly revisit the subject of digital appraisal in the future.

Yeo, G. (2010). 'Nothing is the same as something else': Significant properties and notions of identity and originality. Archival Science, 10(2), 85-116. doi:10.1007/s10502-010-9119-9 Geoffrey Yeo has held positions as Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Archives and Records Management program at University College London, as well as lecturing and researching on various topics of records management and archives. According to Yeo, a key part of appraising an items value to a collection is to determine whether or not there are duplicates that serve the same purpose or cover the same material in the same way. However, not all appraisers recognize certain qualities as differences, and it can be difficult to create an objective standard for what qualifies as a similarity or a difference. This issue is thrown into greater relief by the introduction of digital documents, whose copies may not be the original source in the traditional sense but may not necessarily appreciably altered from their original format. His article gives wider perspective on digital archiving presented by Gutmann, Harvey, and Ramirez.