What happens to papers after they are collected?
If the papers are significant in themselves or in their provenance as the papers of a prominent person — or if they are accompanied by a large donation, they may be processed. To process papers is, in plain English, to put them in order in a protective environment and write a descriptive guide to help researchers understand what is in them. Restrictions may be imposed on the use of papers at a donor=s request. But most papers are processed to be used. When papers are stored unprocessed, in the order or disorder in which they arrived and with little or no written description, their accessibility is restricted by default. Their use is, if not forbidden by policy, so forbidding in practice that they may not be used at all.
