What Is an Archival Needs Assessment, and Why Might You Need One?
If you’ve ever inherited a back room full of boxes, tried to answer a research request without knowing what’s in your collection, or found yourself overwhelmed by too many storage decisions and not enough policies, then you’ve probably wished someone could just come in and tell you what to do. That’s what an archival needs assessment is for.
An archival needs assessment brings in an outside expert to walk through your space, look at your collections, talk with your staff or volunteers, and help you figure out where you are and where you could go. It’s a practical, action-oriented evaluation of your current setup. The goal is to help you align your collections work with your resources, your goals, and best practices in the field.
What It Looks Like
At Backlog, we offer on-site archival needs assessments. We come to your institution, walk your spaces, and meet with everyone who interacts with the archives. That might include volunteers, executive directors, development staff, or even your marketing team. We want to see the full picture of how your collections function within the larger organization, and what support or changes would help you use them more effectively.
During the visit, we tour all your storage spaces, including any areas that might be used for records storage in the future. We look at whether the space is big enough, but also whether it’s appropriate. Do you have the right shelving? Is your environmental control doing what it’s supposed to do? How are you handling risks like water leaks, pests, or mold? We also ask questions about housekeeping, building maintenance, and emergency preparedness.
Collections: Housing, Handling, and the Weird Stuff
Every archive has the oddball items you’re not sure how to store. We look at those too. That includes fragile materials, large items, realia, audiovisual media, or anything that might need special housing. We’ll recommend new solutions where needed, and confirm when your current storage is working well. We also look at how things are handled. Are you using the right supports? Are people trained on what not to touch? Do you need better workflows for pulling or reshelving materials?
Arrangement and Description
This part is all about how your collections are organized and how people find things. We look at your systems: are you using accession numbers, collection-level records, hierarchical organization? Do your inventories actually match what’s on the shelves? Do you have finding aids or just a spreadsheet that lives on one person’s desktop? It’s okay either way. The point is to understand your level of control, both intellectual and physical, and suggest ways to improve it.
Policy Review and Documentation
We review any written policies you have and flag the ones you might be missing. That could include things like:
Access and reading room rules
Copyright and reproduction guidelines
Collection development policies
Reference and use policies
Guidelines for accepting new donations
We can suggest language, point you toward examples, and even help you draft new policies if you want to keep working with us after the assessment.
Digitization Strategy
Digitization is often high on the list of priorities, but hard to get started. During the assessment, we review any scanning or photography you’re already doing and evaluate whether it meets preservation and access standards. If you haven’t started yet, we can help you figure out where to begin. That might mean identifying which collections to prioritize, what equipment to invest in, and how to describe the files so they’re usable. We can also help you write simple, clear workflows so your digitization process is consistent.
Digital Files and Preservation
If you already have digital files—whether they came from a scanner or were born digital—we look at how you’re storing and managing them. Maybe they live in Google Drive or Dropbox, or maybe they’re scattered across staff computers. We’ll evaluate whether your current setup is sustainable and offer suggestions for digital preservation, secure storage, and long-term planning.
What You Get at the End
After the on-site visit, we put everything together in a comprehensive written report. This isn’t a vague summary. It’s an action plan. It outlines what needs to happen first, where to invest your time and money, and how to fix the biggest issues we found. We include specific recommendations, supply lists if needed, and references to trusted sources like the Society of American Archivists, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, and the Library of Congress.
The report also serves as a reference for the long term. Even if you’re not ready to do everything right away, you can come back to it over time as new challenges or opportunities arise. It’s designed to help you build a foundation that will last.
The Timeline
The whole process takes about two months. After you book the assessment, we’ll schedule planning calls, handle travel logistics, and coordinate meetings with the people you want us to speak with. After the visit, we take about three to four weeks to write the report. One week after that, we schedule a Zoom meeting to go over everything in detail and answer your questions. About a month later, we do a second follow-up Zoom to check in and provide support once you’ve started putting changes into action.
This timeline gives you space to absorb the information, make progress, and come back to us with real-world questions. It’s not a drop-it-and-run service. We’re here to help you move forward.
Next Steps
An archival needs assessment is a standalone service, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the relationship. If you want help with training staff or volunteers, migrating to a new system, or building out your digitization workflows, we offer ongoing support. But the assessment gives you everything you need to start making real, lasting improvements to your archives.
If you want to see what this looks like in action, check out our case studies to learn more about the organizations we’ve worked with and the kinds of challenges we’ve helped them solve.
