collection growth-the internet effect and backlogs

The initial estimate suggests that the collection had around 25,000 items in 1985, primarily consisting of presidential ads, along with groups of congressional and gubernatorial ads from the years 1952 to 1956. These ads encompassed approximately 700 unique candidate names.

The collection is comprehensive, covering all 50 states of the United States. Additionally, it extends its reach to political ads from various countries and regions around the world. These include Afghanistan, Aruba, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Europe, Germany, Greece, Guam, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Soviet Union, Tasmania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Virgin Islands, and Yugoslavia.

Over time, the collection has significantly grown and now encompasses 4,677 unique candidate names, spanning a period of 104 years¹. It includes a wide range of political offices including expanded state, city, county campaigns and represents 40 political parties. The collection also includes over 1,500 identified production agencies or political action committees as creators².

The considerable scale of the Collection and its varied content presented substantial challenges and complexities during the (re)ingestion, (re)inventorying, and cataloging processes. Legacy information was not provided in initial acquisition efforts which would account for collection verification, changes in structure, or integrity checking.

The compilation of collection notes, catalogs, inventories, historical references, rights verification, licensing, and other documentation related to the collection involves extensive investigation and manual research, spanning tens of thousands of handwritten and typed written pages. These materials provide comprehensive documentation and insights into the collection’s contents, history, and significance. However, managing this vast amount of information poses a challenge as these resources are scattered across numerous storage locations. This documentation is often found on outdated media or in non-electronic formats, necessitating the use of digital forensic procedures to extract and consolidate data for analysis³.

the internet effect

The advent of the Internet brought about a significant increase in the generation and publication of advertisements, resulting in a rapid growth of collection materials. This shift also necessitated a change in the way information was collected. Unlike analog materials that were often donated with limited accompanying information, Internet-based ads came with readily available metadata. However, due to the sheer volume of ads being produced and made available, backlogs in processing and managing the collection also increased at an alarming rate.

A critical challenge faced by collection managers is the identification of limitations or potential obstacles to ensure the long-term sustainability of extensive collections. Technological advancements have resulted in the rapid growth of collection content without the corresponding knowledge or capacity to proactively address potential chaos. Instead, continued archival workflow.

The result is ineffective processes having become commonplace as certain variables and conditions have been normalized over an extended period. As a result, the focus has shifted towards reactive crisis management rather than the implementation of sustainable, long-term solutions.

⁴ ⁵

the growth of backlog

Over time, the continuous growth of information and the lack of effective management in previous processes have led to a significant system failure, resulting in an exponential expansion of the archival backlog. As Ciaran Trace, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas, pointed out, this backlog represents a critical point of failure, perpetuating a prevailing sense that the norm has become one of “deferred maintenance” (Trace 2022)⁶.

During the (re)processing of the Collection, it became apparent that documentation pertaining to the history, growth, and maintenance of the collection was not adequately presented at the time of its acquisition in 2019. In recent years, extensive discovery processes have been undertaken to gather supporting materials that can help create a coherent understanding of the collection. This includes information collected from external resources such as news articles, interviews, and grant applications. Although the available qualitative data is limited, estimates have been generated to highlight critical points of failure and potential consequences associated with the backlog.

The initial mention of backlogging was discovered through an article review in the University newspaper. According to the collection director, as of November 24, 2003, the Collection had grown to 70,000 cataloged items, while there were still 10,000 commercials awaiting cataloging (University of Oklahoma, November 24, 2003)⁷.

During further research, an additional article was found that provided insights into the years 2003 to 2009. According to the article, the collection had grown to include 90,000 ads during that period. The collection manager, who was interviewed for the article, described it as an assortment of media formats such as 35mm film, VHS tapes, cassettes, and DVDs. The media items were scattered in a haphazard manner without any specific organization.

Moreover, through ongoing investigation, it was discovered that as of 2012, a substantial number of boxes, estimated to be between 40 and 100, had remained unopened, indicating a backlog in processing and inventory management.

Footnotes

Numerical counts were tabulated from research and deduction from data analysis by the author. ↩
These numbers have been calculated through data cleansing, management, and (re)processing of the collection. The counts involving creators, political action groups, and candidate names can change upon discovery of additional elements or changes. ↩
Information pertaining to the collection has been found across multiple sources, including individual hard drives, floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, non-functional internal and external hard drives, and outdated server storage devices. The extraction and methodology tools utilized by the author for forensic analysis are proprietary in nature. ↩
This graph was created using reported collection inventories, notes, and documents. ↩
This graph was created using reported collection inventories, notes, and documents. ↩
Trace, Ciaran B. (2022): Archival infrastructure and the information backlog. In Archival science 22 (1), pp. 75–93. DOI: 10.1007/s10502-021-09368-x ↩
University of Oklahoma (11/24/2003): OU’s Political Commercial Archive Awarded ‘Save America’s Treasures” Grant. Lews Mazanti, Project Director. Available online at https://web.archive.org/web/20040808193404/http://www.ou.edu/pccenter/newsrelease.htm ↩