Re-engineering Archives: Business Process Management (BPM) and the Quest for Archival Efficiency

The twenty-first century provides new challenges and opportunities for professionals working in archives and special collections. One of the most exciting advances of the last decade has been the development of archival content management (ACM) systems that enable archivists to effectively manage information about their collections. Unfortunately, these systems have the unintended consequence of perpetuating the problem of backlogs by augmenting archivists' current fixation on processing as the solution. This article examines how business process management (BPM) can be used to better understand the archival business process and highlights the importance of taking a holistic approach to solving problems such as the backlog. It also looks at how concepts from BPM have the potential to improve ACM systems-particularly through the integration of workflow management.