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Re: Thanks for the advice on "Too Many Copies"



On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Divack, Alan wrote:

> I can see legitimate reasons to limit photocopying:
> --intellectual property limitations  (but how much value does an Archives
> really get by monopolizing its holdings?)
> --the staff is unable to handle the request, and it is not possible to hire
> more staff for the purpose  (for university archives, are there really no
> work study students or part-timers to do copying?  or what about, under some
> conditions, letting patrons copy for themselves?)
> --preservation problems with the material being copied.
> -- privacy or access restrictions on individual or corporate records (though
> this is more of an access than photocopy problem).

Thanks for bringing this up again.  With all due respect (and I mean
that sincerely), in answer to your question of hiring additional
students -- no, we cannot always hire more students.  We are limited
in what we can pay in hourly wages, both by policy and by budget.
Budgets are finite documents, and (around here) they are tight, and
there are consequences to be paid when they are exceeded.  Currently,
we have 30 hours of student help per week (except this week, which is
spring break, when we have none).  Half of that time is dedicated to
monitoring our reading room, leaving no more than 15 hours per week
for other tasks, which include processing records -- and photocopying.
Full-time staff do handle smaller copying jobs, but our other duties
virtually prohibit us from taking on larger photocopying jobs.

I don't wish to seem facetious, but I note that Mr. Divack is with the
Ford Foundation.  Expecting an academic archives automatically to come
up with more money to handle an increased workload would be akin, in
my mind, to expecting a granting agency such as the Ford Foundation to
exceed their grants budget because there are more worthy projects than
they have funds budgeted to cover.  I'm sure they must say, in some
cases, "I'm sorry, but we cannot fund your request, worthy though it
is."  Similarly, archivists in situations where available resources
(equipment, money, staff, etc.) will not cover the total demand must
place limits on what they can do for their customers.

As for allowing patrons to do their own copying, we would not allow
unbound, unique materials to leave our supervision because some
documents would not return, some would be damaged, and the arrangement
would be disturbed in other cases.  Not all of these effects would be
intentional, and we do have patrons (bless their hearts) who
understand the need to maintain original order and who respect the
integrity of the documents themselves, but we do not have the time to
go through each folder after the researcher has seen them to check for
missing items or return them to the order they were in.

> However, the tone in the postings seemed to be, "Thank G-d we have a good
> reason not to fulfill this difficult and time-consuming request. "    Our
> response should rather be, it is unfortunate that we don't have the
> resources to fulfill your request, and then to try and find a way of doing
> so.  The suggestion  of microfilming heavily used collections with a view
> towards easier use without damage to the originals was an excellent one.  If
> a collection is used heavily enough, and access is not restricted, it would
> also seem to be a good candidate for digitization so that it could be made
> available over the web. There seems to be an attitude among archivists that,
> for the most part, only those who are able to spend large amounts of time at
> our repositories  are really legitimate researchers.  Everyone else is not
> serious and less worthy of our help.

But by limiting photocopying according to some reasonable formula,
aren't we really making our materials available to *more* researchers,
rather than fewer?  The assumption here seems to be that we can always
accommodate more, fulfill more orders, etc.  But eventually this
expansion must come to a stop when the resources to support it are
stretched to their limit.  By allowing one individual to request, say,
2,000 copies, other researchers will be denied the photocopies they
have requested, or at least have their requests delayed.  Isn't a
researcher ordering 20 copies just as worthy as one ordering 2,000?
We have one photocopier, and it can make only so many copies per day
(assuming there is staff available to run it all day); we cannot just
order a second one, even if we could justify it on the basis of
needing to fill many large orders.

Microfilming is also an option, but it also costs money, and it's not
an expense we can absorb ourselves.  In one instance, a publisher was
interested in publishing a facsimile edition of several handwritten
volumes of history seminar minutes.  The publisher was willing to pay
for the microfilming, so we had that segment microfilmed and the
facsimile edition was published.  But the ordinary researcher cannot
afford to pay for a microfilming project, just as we cannot.  The
fallback, therefore, remains the original documents, and the inherent
limitations on their use.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

James Stimpert                       E-mail:    James.Stimpert@jhu.edu
Archives (Arts and Sciences)
MSE Library
Johns Hopkins University             Voice:     (410) 516-8323
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD  21218                 Fax:       (410) 516-7202

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