In the last years, a number of existing problems that we already couldn't deal with have got much worse, and our ability to deal with them has not improved. At the same time, nothing about our practice has changed - and our organisations who didn't see enough value in our practice to fund us properly and give use the enforcement power we need still don't see enough value in our practice. Archival institutions agree - which is why they are all busy lowering their standards as fast as they can. At some point, practitioners have to start changing because this trend is not new, and is only accelerating, and the first thing we need to look at is the core of our practices - and RnD is at the very core, and in the electronic world, it is absolutely unsupportable as a practice, it sucks up way more value than it ever produces, and the hoops it forces us and our users to jump through destroy any chance we have of being effective.
In the last years, a number of existing problems that we already couldn't deal with have got much worse, and our ability to deal with them has not improved. At the same time, nothing about our practice has changed - and our organisations who didn't see enough value in our practice to fund us properly and give use the enforcement power we need still don't see enough value in our practice. Archival institutions agree - which is why they are all busy lowering their standards as fast as they can. At some point, practitioners have to start changing because this trend is not new, and is only accelerating, and the first thing we need to look at is the core of our practices - and RnD is at the very core, and in the electronic world, it is absolutely unsupportable as a practice, it sucks up way more value than it ever produces, and the hoops it forces us and our users to jump through destroy any chance we have of being effective.