n.the usefulness or significance of materials based on their content, independent of any intrinsic or evidential valueHolmes 1954They [records officers] are, for the most part, not of or in the academic life. They are presumably “action” men, and they are under pressures. Their approach is pragmatic, which may be good in considering administrative values but is inadequate for broader research values.Silsby 1974, 84Because statutes of limitations expire in time, and because the parties involved in past transactions and decisions eventually die, and because their successors in office may seldom need to invoke past documentation for current business, the original character and purposes of these records has often been overlooked and ignored, especially if they are thought to have historical or general research value.Lucas 1976, 62Many such collections consist in large part of materials whose research value is relatively low in relation to their bulk (such as financial records or constituent correspondence), or which are unitary or sequential in character (such as working papers, minutes, monthly or annual reports).Brichford 1977, 1From documentation relating to the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the creating agency, the archivist selects records having archival value or continuing usefulness after the original purposes for which the records were created have been served.Mason 1977, 47The inevitable conflict arises when these institutions solicit papers which are also of interest to the state and regional institutions which are interested in these same collections because of their research value to the region.Maher 1992, 44–45A record has research value if it can be used by individuals engaged in the collection and analysis of data about one’s institution and its property, faculty, students; the activities in which they are involved; and the ideas that are the basis for their actions. The researcher may be looking for evidence, information, or both, but the essence of the research process is a systematic effort to collect data on a given subject, person, or thing in order to answer the questions posed by the researcher.Ham 1993, 57Archivists are also enjoined to consider the past, current, and potential use of archival records in appraising a collection for its research value.Schellenberg 1996, 140This “informational” value is ordinarily called research value—the value that inheres in public records because of the information they contain that may be useful in research of various kinds.Buehn 2013, 12–13Donna McCrea, at the University of Montana, says she deaccessions “all the time,” particularly scrapbooks that do not have the same research value as other historical papers.Baldock 2015, 20The potential research value of the collection was considerable, and the topic of children on the orphan trains was known to be popular.Welch 2015, 2Pre-accessioning and pre-custodian intervention is a crucial opportunity—before archivists make an institutional commitment—to survey the materials, gather content and contextual information for the donor, explain their processing approach and learn of possible privacy concerns, and appraise the research value of potential collection.Hayden, Monson, and Trask 2016, 5ASD’s Special Collections include a variety of papers, records and books deemed rare, unique and of significant research value to warrant long-term preservation.
