At the Modern Archives Institute this past winter, lecturer
after lecturer mourned the fact that the National Archives allows scanners in
its research rooms, often citing that once you allow scanners in, you can never
turn back. They encouraged us to ban scanners in our own research rooms and to
only let staff/volunteers digitize records. I have never agreed with this
concept, for a number of reasons. I believe that the damage done by researchers
scanning records is negligible and in this economy, we are wasting money by
trying to control things.
One argument against scanners is that researchers do not
know how to properly handle records while scanning them. However, most
researchers who bring scanners are not new. They are aware that they need
copies of a large amount of records and have to make an investment in scanner. These
researchers have used records before and therefore know how to handle them. And
if they don’t handle records properly, shouldn’t your reference staff be
monitoring them? By and large, the majority of the digitization staff hired by
archives that I have met had little to no training or experience with records.
I’ve seen staff handle records in a very poor manner, mainly because they are
not qualified to work in an archive in the first place.
Another argument against scanners is the light exposure. It’s
true that extended light exposure, like other bad environmental conditions, can
damage certain types of records. But one scan isn’t going to do much damage.
Yes, we should be worried if a record is so popular that it is copied fifty
times in one year by researchers. But if a record is this popular with
researchers, then shouldn’t it already be a priority for digitization for the
repository?
Let’s face it; the vast majority of archives don’t have the
funding to create the ideal situation for its records. If your institution’s
HVAC breaks on a regular basis, if you don’t have enough space to properly
store your records without causing damage, or if you can’t afford to retain
qualified employees, you are not justified in banning scanners because of the
damage risk. Maybe we need to accept that our institutions aren’t perfect and
we can only demand so much when we ourselves have the funding to do very little.
