AIC's 43rd Annual Meeting

In 2005, the concept of “MPLP” was introduced in the archival world with the publication of 
Mark A. Greene and Dennis Meissner’s article titled “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing” in The American Archivist. Greene and Meissner urged their fellow archivists to reduce or eliminate numerous traditional tasks of archival arrangement and processing in order to reduce processing backlogs and make collections available to researchers more quickly. In order to achieve desired economies, MPLP-style minimal processing may abandon traditional tasks associated with preservation, such as removing fasteners, photocopying unstable materials, and refoldering. In the ten years since publication of the original article, MPLP has expanded beyond the original target of late-20th century collections and become a broadly-accepted reality of professional archival practice. In this discussion group session, we will examine the implementation of minimal processing in a variety of institutional settings and explore the potential impact on the long-term preservation of archival collections. Following a brief panel presentation, a discussion will address the following questions:
--What changes in processing practices, especially as they relate to preservation, are we seeing in archives? Are some types of institutions seeing more change than others? 
--What impact can we expect from shifts in preventive care resulting from these changes?
--How are preservation administrators, collections care professionals, and conservators 
responding to changes within their home institutions?
--What practical, sustainable solutions can we propose to enhance preservation of archival 
collections while acknowledging realistic limitations in arrangement and processing?