Hackbart-Dean and Slomba lead us through creating a processing program, setting processing priorities (I loved this part -- matrices!), managing processing, preservation administration, description and standards, training and managing staff, and evaluation and assessment. Whew. If that sounds comprehensive, well, it is. It also bleeds a lot into general archives management, which is a big strength of the book. Processing is such a huge part of archival administration, that you can't really talk about managing it without talking about managing the whole thing.
I appreciated that this is a slim volume with relatively short chapters. That necessarily means that some things are gone over quickly and not every possible topic is covered at length. The authors make up for that by providing extensive footnotes and a really helpful annotated bibliography at the end. My one criticism would be the very short amount of time that is given to electronic records. While they are mentioned a few times, and some suggestions for further reading are given, I think the book would have been strengthened by a chapter dedicated to the unique challenges of managing the processing of digital archives.
This is a good review book for mid-career professionals like me. It helped me to put some perspective on my day-to-day work and to step back and reevaluate the way I do some things. Not every suggestion would work for a one-woman shop like mine, but there is enough here for any archivist to really sink their teeth into. Nice work!
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