College and Research Libraries JOHN Y. SIMON Editorial Projects as Derivative Archives During the last quarter century, South- ern Illinois University at Carbondale has grown from a provincial teacher's college with an enrollment of a few thousand to a full-fledged university with nearly twen- ty thousand students. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this tremendous growth and expansion is how unremark- able it is: across the country state uni- versities have followed a similar pattern. The metamorphosis has been accompa- nied by explanatory literature in which appropriate political, economic, and so- cial factors march in review. Somewhere on the list, however, modem technology must appear, and in explaining how Car- bondale has become a research center of sorts, capable of sustaining a project of collecting, editing, and publishing a comprehensive edition of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (in some twenty vol- umes) and a host of other scholarly en- terprises, I am struck by the influence of both air conditioning and photocopy- ing. The fact that cotton was grown around Carbondale during the Civil War should immediately suggest that artificial intercession with the climate is a precondition of year-round intellectual activity. The influence of photocopying, a bit more subtle, deserves closer ex- amination. The Xerox age-a time when photo- copying became a routine part of life instead of an esoteric technique-came upon us with such dazzling suddenness that all its implications cannot yet be .appreciated. In the study of American history, old distinctions between big league libraries ·and the bush league no longer pertain: reprinting through photo- copy, a variety of microform reproduc- tions of books, newspapers, and manu- scripts, and easier access to extremely specialized material photocopied through interlibrary loan, have enabled new li- braries to serve scholars as well as estab- lished libraries which have been build- ing their collections for decades. In li- braries with .appropriate ambitions and resources, research collections can mush- room overnight, and provinciality be- comes a matter of choice rather than location. The Xerox age has also made possible massive comprehensive editions of basic documents in American history. By as- sembling files of photocopies of manu- scripts scattered across the country, edi- tors can apply comparative analysis to papers housed thousands of miles apart. Textual accuracy is obtained by repeated reference to the photocopy of the origi- nal manuscript. The diffusion of photo- copying equipment permits a canvass of collections located far from the beaten scholarly path, and the incorporation of materials otherwise certain to be ne- glected from private autograph collec- tions and the smallest institutional hold- ings. In other words, for the first time the manuscript resources of the -world are available to compilers and editors. In addition to facilitating scholarship, this offers to owners, both institutional and private, a method of making available their property at remote points without parting with it. Photocopied documents have textual protection against disasters such as fire, and owners can more easily I 291 292/ College & Research Libraries • July 1974 prove ownership in case of theft. Thanks to the Xerox age, new interest in documentary editing, and a greater demand for authenticity in American his- tory, scholarly projects involving the col- lecting of the papers of leading figures in the American past have· multiplied rapidly in the last twenty years. The files of photocopies for future volumes have aroused curiosity among scholars investigating related topics. Researchers who hope either to take a shortcut to research or wish to guarantee compre- hensiveness in their coverage of manu- script material are now interested in examining the files assembled for edi- torial projects. Certainly such requests for access can- not be denied easily. Most editorial proj- ects are located physically within li- braries which have a long tradition of providing general access to their ma- terials and of seeking to attract visiting scholars. The projects themselves, estab- lished to provide an invaluable tool to present and future scholarship, have drawn greedily on the knowledge of ex- isting experts in the field. Most multi- volume documentary compilations tap· various forms of government funds for aid in their expensive projects, assuming additional responsibility to the public. At the same time, requests by outside scholars for access to photocopies pre- sent important problems. The explosion of scholarly population in the same pe- riod when these documentary projects were getting underway means that con- siderable numbers of potential research- ers are involved. Work already demand- ing large expenditures of time and en- ergy might well be hampered by new claims on these resources. Practicing edi- tors already find their versatility strained by the demands of their documents, the administration of office staff, the endless search for money, and the delicate di- plomacy of publishing. They might well pause before making the transition from scholarship to service-from hammer to anvil-to consider the implications. The difference between mammoth edi- torial projects involving the assembling of photocopies and the normal research of any scholar in American history is really one of degree rather than kind. Research files, once crammed with tat- tered transcriptions and paraphrases, now more often testify to the wisdom of early investment in photocopying stock. Individual academics, of course, feel free to share their photocopies with their friends or not, but editorial projects as organizations feel obliged to set policies, and here a sense of generosity encoun- ters harsh reality. Editorial offices-usual- ly too small-are designed for editorial purposes rather than for library func- tions. Projects limited in their personnel -and this includes almost all-will be pressed to provide the necessary aid to "qualified scholars." This last phrase, of course, presents its own problems: defi- nitions of "qualified scholars" have al- ways been elastic, though much of the snobbery implicit in the phrase has been eroded in the past few years as old barri- cades based upon degrees and academic credentials (often involving jobs) be- come increasingly untenable. As a re- sult, open must mean open, closed mean closed. Time applied to the preparation of additional volumes would certainly better serve a larger number of scholars than aid provided to individual visitors. In addition, editorial project files, like individual scholarly files, are arranged for a specific purpose rather than for general use, and cannot be made avail- able in their entirety to outside scholars without considerable rearrangement and the creation of additional finding aids. Providing half a loaf may involve con- frontation with an enraged researcher with bread-knife in hand. Long -term projects are risky enough at best; the odds against their comple- tion are increased by any alteration of the original purpose. They face recur- rent problems of funding, which they must seek on the basis of the originality of their work and its unique importance, a case which would be weakened by prior publication of any substantial body of the documents involved. Guarding against this could involve checking scholarly credentials, integrity and intention as well, and perhaps even supervising re- search. Under such conditions open ac- cess would conflict with principles of free inquiry. But by all odds the greatest difficulty does not come from within the project itself but from those institutions upon which it is dependent for ·original docu- mentary material. In making photo- copies of manuscript material available, more and more libraries are granting only limited rights, insisting that ma- terial be used only for specific purposes and not for the creation of derivative archives based on photocopies. The ar- rangements between the Grant Associa- tion and the hundreds of libraries which have furnished materials for its major project are tangled and complex; yet the files of photocopies cannot be arranged so as to take into account all these varie- ties of conditions. When photocopies have not been provided with explicit conditions that they be used only for a documentary project, these conditions are often implicit; materials have often been furnished the Grant Association for our edition of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant by libraries which would be most distressed to find them in wider use. Any policy of open access endangers the entire project by threatening to dry up vital sources of supply, and no project finding its chief value in comprehensive- ness can afford this. Our policy cannot be based upon a consensus of policies of those institutions furnishing material: we must include documents from those libraries most restrictive and to do so must comply with their conditions. Editorial Projects I 293 By placing restrictions on the use of photocopies from their collections, li- braries by no means follow a selfish or foolish policy. In the use of photocopied materials, misattribution of source is a constant threat stemming equally from carelessness and caution on the part of scholars. More concerned with the con- tent than the provenance of documents, some writers will not distinguish be- tween derivative archives and owners of original manuscripts simply because they do not want to take the time to establish the true source. Others will cite the derivative archive as a means of avoiding excessive claims to scholarship. After all, if a researcher has seen, for ex- ample, six photocopies of letters of which the originals are in a large manuscript collection in the Library of Congress, he can hardly claim to have examined that Library of Congress collection. Some be- lieve that accuracy in citation demands reference to the photocopy rather than to the original. While the Library of Congress will hardly perish because of such mis.attribution, many libraries de- pend upon head counts for their fund- ing; librarians, archivists, and curators believe that they have a role in the schol- arly process somewhat more significant than that of the stock clerk, and they expect, and will even demand, contact with any researcher who wishes to make use of manuscript collections. They quite properly resent use of selected photo- copies as a method of avoiding careful examination of coherent collections. In negotiating purchases of documents cost- ing hundreds of dollars for relatively small numbers of sheets of paper, they must justify this expenditure in a world where research could proceed with pho- tocopies of the same documents costing pennies. Libraries which have created microfilm editions of some of their manu- script collections have recognized that the age of the scholarly pilgrim is closing without, however, surrendering the right 294 I College & Research Libraries • July 1974 to provide access to their collections on their own terms. Confronted with various questions concerning access, the Grant Association conducted an informal canvass of simi- lar projects, but discovered no consensus. A few projects are open, a few are closed, but many have either not yet realized the implications or have not yet d ecided on a policy. Some files are open to some scholars-those "who can help us more than we help · them" -and closed to others. This middle course ap- pears especially dangerous since it could give rise to charges of favoritism , heightened as some collections once open are forced either to restrict access, or to have .access closed to them by es- sential libraries. After considering the problem with much painful ambivalence, the directors of the Grant Association finally settled upon a policy which at- tempts to provide the greatest aid to all other scholars in the field without harm- ing the project itself: Because of various problems grow- ing out of limitations of space, staff, and time, agreements with institutions and individuals who own original docu- ments, and publishing commitments, the Ulysses S. Grant Association has reluctantly decided that it cannot pro- vide researchers with access to its files of photocopies of documents it does not own. Original material, unavailable else- where, owned by the Grant Association, is open to all qualified researchers. The Grant Association has been organized to prepare an edition of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, and cannot practically or legally assume the func- tion of a library or archive. In order to further scholarship, re- quests for information concerning the location of original documents, as well as other requests for biographical and bibliographical i'nformation, will be answered to the best of our ability within the limitations of staff and time. If these remarks indicate strict oppo- sition to derivative archives, then a few more words are needed. Manuscript ma- terial essential to the study of American history is scattered across this country in an illogical pattern which often frus- trates or distorts research. Unique ma- terials essential to understanding our past can be held, and abused, as private property, and there is no reasonable prospect of any massive bureaucratic shuffling of these resources to put pa- pers physically where they belong log- ically. Almost all librarians and most private collectors recognize that owner- ship of manuscript material imposes responsibility as well as pleasure. In col- lectiJ.?.g material for documentary publi- cation, editors have been repeatedly en- couraged by generous cooperation at many points. But documentary editions meet only part of the need of making manuscript sources generally available. Since scholarship has so long been shaped and inhibited by the physical location of the sources, and the situation is not improving, the creation of deriva- tive archives, now technically possible, might well be placed high on the li- brary agenda. One location, for example, for the photocopied papers of leaders of the American Revolution, or one large collection in black history drawing on manuscripts available across the coun- try, could create new dimensions of scholarship. Such collections must, of course, be created with a full under- standing of their nature and purpose in the form of a relationship between con- senting libraries. Source locations must be carefully noted on the photocopies; researchers must be induced to comply with conditions for citation. In the mean- time, informal dissemination of photo- copies, including general use of files as- sembled for purposes of documentary editing, creates more scholarly problems than it solves. - - ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ j