Archival Management Software: A Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources

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Whether called “the elephant in the closet” (Mandel 2004, 106) or a “dirty little secret” (Tabb 2004, 123), hidden collections are becoming recognized as a major problem for archives and special collections. As the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) stated in launching its Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Program, “Libraries, archives, and cultural institutions hold millions of items that have never been adequately described. These items are all but unknown to, and unused by, the scholars those organizations aim to serve” (2008). Reducing archival backlogs and exposing once-hidden collections will likely require that archives revamp their workflows, but software can play a role in making archives more efficient and their collections more visible.