Archival Processing Information: Exploring Primary Source User Attitudes toward Extended Access

by McClendon, Angela M.

In 2002, Tom Hyry and Michelle Light proposed the expansion of the "processing information" portion of archival finding aids to include more information on how collections are processed and the archivists who process them. This exploratory study investigated the attitudes of a selection of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty members with experience using archival collections. Surveys were used to collect biographical and attitudinal information from these researchers. The respondents did report a high level of interest in several types of administrative and processing information, particularly information regarding materials that were removed from collections and notes regarding the acquisition of collections. Respondents were most interested in professional information about the processing archivist, such as his or her title, employment status, and prior experience, and least interested in personal information about the processing archivist such as gender or political affiliation.