They Opened Them to Read Them
Opening, cleaning or reconstructing an object can erase the very context that made it interpretable. Archaeology and archive recovery built procedures around irreversibility before data work had version control.
archives
2 entries
Thirty-Seven Million Descriptions
A growing catalogue can mean that more records were described, not that more underlying material exists. Archives and documentary editions keep these counts apart because the object being counted changes with the record system.