Yes, FC, this is exactly what I’m getting at — the establishment of a socially robust way-station between the “subjective” (intensely personal, not necessarily well communicated) mode of importance and the so-called “objective” mode (meaning in actuality importance as determined by the judgments of institutions, the relevant authorities, the market, and so on). As I’m imagining it, those aware of (or indeed fond of) the amasser of the material (like you, I find the word collection a bit unhelpful or misleading) would be those proposing that it perhaps had a wider importance — and would (if my suggestion finds a practicable form) then have a means to take this proposal to the next step. So what I’m looking at is a means by which “quite significant to a smallish number of people” could become “of unexpected interest to many more people” — or at least, by ensuring that the material doesn’t just instantly vanish into a skip lamented but unrecorded, that this possibility remains, for a while. The structure I’m looking at — at this extremely tentative and hypothetical stage! — would very much entail discussion and exploration, evaluation in the natural sense of people with an interest in such matters collectively and publicly* assessing whatever the material is. And — perhaps with Martin still in mind** — I’m thinking too how friends and colleagues sometimes have a more confident sense of the potential value of the material, and the mind that gathered it, than the mind is prepared to believe of itself. The material’s exact meaning — what you’re calling the “subjective” sense of its importance — is bound to morph somewhat during any such process: but this is in the nature of all communication at all times.

*In the sense of no qualification barriers to entry into a discussion, aside perhaps from a subscription fee (to cover admin and such)
**But also for example Max Brod and Kafka!

First, like Tim says, it feels like there may be a percentage of the collection that is fundamentally a holding pen awaiting digitisation, both for the VHS TV tapes where you want to get them out of their deteriorating formats asap and for the more permanent items such as comics where having them digitised would be great, but you also want to keep the original artefacts indefinitely.

Similar processes for this situation are actually already in place with current video archives, who extensively catalogue their contents but then only digitise them upon request. I can see that working well with this project: store, catalogue and (crucially) make the catalogue as well-known as possible. Then curious parties/the Jason Scotts/archive.orgs of the world can digitise/sponsor digitisation and make the results available, linked from the main catalogue.

The second interesting angle is that of it being essentially a “provisional, temporary” space. If entries in the catalogue had explicit “expiry dates” (beyond which there is no certain guarantee of their storage), that would:
a) help get the things people really wanted into safer, more permanent storage;
b) keep the things of mild interest in circulation — rather than potentially mouldering forgotten in a shed, they move on to their next willing home when their time is up; and
c) encourage participation — people would, I think, be much more likely to lend spare space to archive storage for a fixed period than they would be to commit to keeping things for The Rest Of Time.

Yes, this means that some things might expire and with nobody interested at all they could possibly be lost for good. Some of archiving is knowing what to throw away, an interest-driven selection process seems as good as any other model for that. Consider: if the BBC had said at the time “we’re thinking about dumping these ToTP and Dr Who tapes, anybody want to look after them?” I’m certain somebody would have stepped up.

Anyway, too long. I meant only to post to say I think it’s a fine idea, and would love to be involved.

I may take you up on advice at some point — thanks! xM

the tacit wisdom of amateur connoisseurship <-- digging this out would be a buried but important part of the "why" of it

At a rough first estimate, I’d say such lists are the minimum requirement, and what I’m looking for entails more than just lists — which would emerge to some extent out of the social context created by the machinery put in place. Which means that how we fashion this machinery must be linked to the nature of the “more than” I’m feeling around for. It’s not a guarantee of quality — or even of interest — but it is a guarantee of the potential for connection (as in “only connect”, I guess). The collection was built round the connections the collector made — though these may be very fugitive indeed, far from well or clearly and truthfully stated. But its curation is built round the way the collector connected with his friends, colleagues, admirers, and such — and these modes of connection may well be in some tension!

(ie SOME of the people I’m imagining have such collections being isolates or eccentrics — people of rich sensibility but bad at communicating it, or wary of doing so… And others will be cheerfully meticulous — but interesting — hoarders whose gathering plan is apparently quite straightforward, but whose self-taught antennae suggest new ways to see things, or link them up, or explain or explore them… )

To achieve the kind of distributed archive you’re talking about, would you simply need a list of things, and where those things can be got? Then individuals could be the curators of any of those things which are not readily available in the downloady domain, and labelled as such, then as those things became downloadily available, the list could be amended but the collection would remain?