The morning session on the final day of 2011 MAC offered an interesting look at the practical application of the concept of “good enough” in arrangement and description. Jennifer Graham (Wisconsin Historical Society), Michelle Ganz (Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum), and Dennis Meissner (Minnesota Historical Society) described their institutional experiences with a eye toward reasonable expectations rather than perfection.
Through her work at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Jennifer Graham encountered a difficult dilemma with over 4,600 cubic feet of unaccessioned materials. The WHS storage is currently full, and an offsite facility is being built, requiring the preparation of those materials shipped offsite. The “good enough” arrangement description allows for efficient retrieval for offsite materials. This process required description at the folder level, and limiting it to abstracts and short scope/content notes. All of the finding aids were developed with EAD, allowing for searching of the online findings aids by keyword (a key element).
Graham discussed several factors to consider:
- Types of collection will often determine the original organization of the collections
- Formats as descriptions will vary based on format
- Various levels of difficulties with each collection
- The current level of access to unprocessed collections
Additionally, there are several constraints, including staff, space, time, knowledge, and money. She also noted the importance for good project management, most importantly, a central place to store records. Her development of a task worksheet allowed her to quickly/easily instruct volunteers, interns, and paraprofessionals on the needs for each collection. The WHS project resulted in over 4,600 cubic feet being cleaned up or described in 535 EAB lists in 0.5 to 2.0 cu. ft. per hour. This was possible by switching focus from arrangement to description for access.
Michelle Ganz explored the concept of “good enough” through her experiences at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. As a professional who wears many different hats, in combination with budgetary strains, Ganz stressed “good enough” is not a luxury, but necessary to functionality. She stated, simple solutions can be the most elegant and often the easiest and most cost effective. Ganz reflected on if she could ever achieve perfection. Recognizing perfection was unobtainable, allowed her to focus her attention on what is possible, rather than what is perfect (although she did note that sometimes good enough is not enough).
Ganz achieves the good enough principles through breaking big projects into little, achievable steps and applying real world solutions. Most importantly, she advocates the motto: recycle, reuse, and reduce. For example, she very rarely throws out a used folder. Ganz also notes the importance of creative thinking, such as her bartering with another department (in this case she traded a volunteer for a month for custom boxes). Another example described the application of good enough to cataloging the archival collections, of which only 10% were cataloged when she started (it now sits at 90%). Finally, she stressed it is all about advocacy and persistence combined with knowing when to walk away.
As the final presenter, Dennis Meissner expanded on the application of the more product, less process (MPLP) model to special collections. Several problems exist with current practice: the processing bench marks and practice are inappropriate; it focuses on the ideal and not what is needed; it is fixated on item-level tasks; preservation anxiety trumps user needs; and we achieve only a fraction of our productivity potential. Meissner proposed a solution through switching from an old model to a new model. Whereas the old model was process driven, the new model would be audience driven. The old model was resource intensive, and the new would be resource sensitive. Rather than focusing on artisan quality, the new model uses good enough, or production quality. The switch would result in lower unit costs, rapid turnarounds, and the ability to deal with uncertainty of future resources. Overall, the new model focuses on making use the preeminent objective.
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