In archival class this week, we had a whole evening devoted to collection “appraisal”, which in the jargon does not mean deciding how much something costs, but whether a collection is worth keeping.
Yes, archivists throw things away. I know, it’s a shocking thought, but stay with me.
The issue is whether a collection has value in regards to the information it contains (the jargon here being whether it has “evidentiary or informational value”). One thought provoking example was the 5,000 linear feet of storage space devoted to the voting forms from the historic 2000 Presidential election in Florida. (If you don’t remember it, check this refresher about the Florida recount.)
Why should we save them?
To repeat: 5,000 linear feet of publicly paid for storage is devoted to this collection, which is made of up boxes and boxes of voting cards (both the bubble and the electronic cards types) that are fragile (from a preservation standpoint; the paper was never designed for posterity) and cannot ever be used legally for anything like another recount. They are just THERE: millions of anonymous forms that are pretty meaningless without the key to read them, which is different for every county. According to the FL State archivist, he can count on one hand the number of researchers who have asked to view any part of the collection in the last eleven years.
So again: Why should we save them?
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