ABSTRACT

Common challenges for many archives are limited staffing, competing priorities, and a backlog of unprocessed or minimally processed collections. Existing literature on collection assessment describes surveys that take years to complete. However, gaining intellectual control of collections is an important first step to managing a backlog. In response to the limited resources in most archival contexts, archives have largely embraced the practice of MPLP for processing collections. Can archivists adapt the meeting-minimal-needs approach from MPLP and apply the same strategy to the collection survey? Without very basic metrics, archivists at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries (CU Boulder Libraries) had difficulty advocating for resources and prioritizing collection needs. This case study reports on the survey tool developed by CU Boulder Libraries Archives to assess collection needs. Archivists developed their survey based on identified goals and simplified fields from collection surveys reported by other institutions. They surveyed 1,847 collections, totaling 33,554.29 linear feet, in about ten months, exceeding the pace set by previous collection surveys. Based on survey results, they intend to prioritize processing collections at higher levels of description, to advocate for additional resources, and to finish migrating legacy collections to ArchivesSpace. They will expand on the initial survey by developing future collection surveys, including a reparative description survey to identify specific processing needs for collections identified as having materials from underrepresented groups. This case study serves as a model for initial surveys for other archivists needing to assess their collections, but who are afraid a survey may take resources away from other priorities.