n.a repository that collects materials from individuals, families, and organizations other than the parent organizationCappon 1956, 104In most instances the custody of bodies of historical papers is broken when they are transferred to manuscript repositories; indeed the original continuity of custody may have been broken several times previously.Schellenberg 1959, 52Gradually the society accepted the enlightened principle, which is characteristic of any mature manuscript repository, that research resources should be held where they are most likely to be used.Bordin 1964, 81As the volume of manuscripts increases, proper processing can become an almost insuperable task. The Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan is a medium-sized manuscript repository, roughly equivalent in staff and resources to many State historical society libraries or the regional manuscript collections at major universities. Its rapidly growing holdings total approximately 3¼ million manuscript items in over 3,000 collections ranging in size from a single item to a thousand feet. Approximately 80 percent of these collections are personal papers.Dewing 1968, 40–41As an instance of a subject for which comprehensive cross-referencing is indicated, there is John White Geary, whose Mexican War service is documented in the Beinecke Collection, with a cross-reference to another Yale collection; related Geary material is to be found in at least two archival establishments and several manuscripts repositories.Moseley 1973, 215Neglect of women has not only meant little or no space given to them in historical writings, but it has also meant little or no space given to women’s papers in manuscript repositories and little or no effort to acquire these materials.Endelman 1987, 350–351While it seems unlikely that all American manuscript repositories could coordinate their collecting in such a manner, this model could be applied to regional groups of manuscript repositories that would agree to divide and coordinate collecting responsibilities.Wilsted 1993, 35A decision to pursue deaccessioning actively in a manuscript repository raises a number of issues regarding ethical relationships with donors.Sauer 2001, 316The first section of the survey asked for the reasons why manuscript repositories do or do not have written collection development policies, and about the characteristics of the written collection development policies of survey respondents.Laver 2003, 165The question of the most appropriate type of repository for faculty papers continually arose in a review of the literature on faculty papers. Are they official records or personal papers, and, consequently, do they belong in university archives or manuscript repositories?Forstrom 2009, 465, fn. 26Once in archival custody, records in manuscript repositories are governed by contracts with authors and donors, library policies, and federal legislation.Van Ness 2010, 137The impact of archival theory and practice on manuscript repositories in the late twentieth century was both dramatic and pervasive. Driven by the need to manage increasingly large collections, manuscript repositories shifted from a culture that prized meticulous description and preservation to one that emphasized collective action. Still, there are limitations to what archival methodology can achieve in the diverse and different world of manuscript processing. As much as we strive to maximize efficiency, the types of records routinely accessioned by a typical manuscript repository make it difficult to achieve a metric even for “large 20th century archival collections.” More than institutional archives, manuscript repositories take in a variety of collections, each different in content, size, organization, and condition.Trace 2020, 104The historical manuscripts tradition, and attendant ideas about archival classification and arrangement, emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as archival work moved beyond the realm of individual manuscript collectors, becoming institutionalized in manuscript repositories and early state archival agencies.
