Adapting for Distance: A Perspective on Team-based Archival Processing during a Pandemic

Abstract

For decades, team processing has been an effective method of tackling extensive collections that would consume a single processor's time. The effectiveness of team processing was challenged in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the archival profession to reexamine long-standing methods of shared work. While some aspects of processing and descriptive work easily shift to remote work, other aspects of processing remain steadfastly physical. This article examines a team processing project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Special Collections and Archives to process a major collection previously held by the university's Film Department that began in summer of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors share their experience adapting physical processes to ever-changing health and safety guidelines and discuss what changes are worth retaining and which processes presented the biggest challenges to pandemic protocols.