Managing Sustainability and Scalability with Successful Archival Projects: Two Lone Arranger, Dual-Role Archivist Case Studies

Two lone arranger, dual-role archivists are faced with highly successful, yet outsized, collaborative projects that have placed unexpected demands on time and resources. The archivists describe their successful projects which similarly engage students with primary source archival materials in innovative ways, from expanding the use of the institutional content management system (CMS) for student creators to providing career-relevant training to German language students. While these projects provide opportunities for institutional and community recognition and engagement with the archives, they require the archivist to consider ways to manage sustainability, scalability, and assessment of their collections along with their overwhelming workload. Lone arranger, dual-role archivists must develop specific and practical solutions to successfully maintain outsized, collaborative projects. This is particularly important in the post-pandemic era when the impacts of reduced budgets and staffing are widespread.