The number of repositories dedicated to collecting women's papers has grown substantially in the past quarter century, with no fewer than 15 established after 1990. This article analyzes that trend, arguing that activists—as well as scholars and archivists—have been at the forefront in establishing these new archives. As the fields of women's history, women's studies, and gender studies have matured, and as women's historians have broadened their vision to include diverse groups, geographic regions, and topics, significant gaps in the documentary record have become evident. Scholars, archivists, and activists have responded to that need with new collecting initiatives and new archives. The authors contend that woman-centered repositories will continue to play an important role in the archival landscape in the coming decades.

This article reports and interprets data collected from a 1995 survey of special collections repositories at Association of Research Libraries institutions. It covers part one of the survey—current practices in preservation management. One hundred thirteen institutions represented by 170 archives/manuscripts repositories were asked to participate, of which 143 institutions, or 84.1%, did so. This is the second largest sample of archives' preservation activities ever gathered in the United States. The goals of the study were, first, to create a base of data on the development of archival preservation programs in research institutions and interpret that data and, second, to understand the extent to which the archives and library preservation departments interact in their common mission to ensure the availability of research materials to present and future generations. The study is unique in its investigation of the interrelationships between the archival repository's and the library's operational functions. This article recognizes that there is potential for a certain amount of preservation program development and integration between libraries and archives.

Archival administrators are beginning the search for administrative tools that rationalize difficult preservation priority decision-making processes. Some are suggesting that the new appraisal literature be evaluated for its application to preservation selection. This article reviews the literature covering archival appraisal's role in the process of selection for preservation in archives, and addresses recent efforts to create archival preservation assessment and selection tools. It also provides overviews of some modern appraisal models which are intended for collections and preservation archivists who are working with selection-for-preservation issues. The author suggests that archivists need to concern themselves less with implementing preservation selection tools. They must concentrate first on understanding the values that make archival records significant, and then rationalize their preservation selection decision-making processes. Then, and only then, should the decisions' hierarchy and flow be incorporated into a preservation assessment and selection tool that is adaptable to individual archival institutions, yet consistent enough to yield comparable data.

This article reports and interprets the data collected from the author's 1995 survey of 142 archives and manuscripts repositories at Association of Research Libraries institutions and their automated access practices. The goals of the study are, first, analyzing the data gathered to understand the development of archives' automated access programs and, second, understanding the extent to which libraries'cataloging and automated systems units interact with their institutions' archival repositories in their common mission of creating and maintaining intellectual access to research materials. These interactions are analyzed in areas such as automated applications development and maintenance, use of specific automated access tools, overall responsibility for program planning, and the provision of training.