Preservationdecision-makingandarchivalphotocopyingTwentieth-centurycollectionsattheKennedylibrary.docVIP

Preservation Decision-making and Archival Photocopying: Twentieth-century Collections at the Kennedy Library by HENRY J. GWIAZDA II INTRODUCTION The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston holds over 225 collections of papers comprising 32 million pages of documents. Most of these materials date from 1940 to the present, and most exemplify two fundamental characteristics of papers of mid-twentieth-century public figures: massive bulk and a low ratio of intrinsically valuable or historically significant documents relative to total volume. The librarys collections and series within collections vary considerably in both size and value so that all processing decisions, including preservation decisions, must begin with an appraisal judgement. Preservation decisions, therefore, are made as only one of a variety of determinations which must take into account factors quite distinct from pure preservation issues, factors such as the quality and quantity of available labor, budgetary limits, or an appraisal of the papers in comparison with others to process. The experience of the Kennedy Library provides a good case study of how these interrelated collection, processing, and preservation decisions are made and how photocopying has become an important option in managing these materials. JUDGEMENT Given finite resources in the face of an already large and growing volume of papers to process, archivists must make judgements about how much lime and labor can and should go into a particular collection or series. Underlying that decision is a more or less conscious reference to the value hierarchy inherent in the collection policy. At the Kennedy Library, this process is articulated and generalized in the definition of three levels of processing. Standard Levels C, B, and A. Each succeeding level represents a greater amount of labor, and therefore for the archivist to choose a higher processing level, he or she must have appraised the unit of papers in terms of the collection policy and