A body of work can grow until its original purpose becomes difficult to see.
Essays accumulate.
Links multiply.
Formats change.
Audiences arrive through routes the creator never predicted.
At that point, curation needs an intended result.
Preservation is one result.
Searchability is another.
Teaching is another.
Discovery, public access, historical record, community, revenue, and personal legacy can each produce different editorial decisions.
Without an explicit purpose, those decisions begin competing silently.
Should an old piece be preserved exactly or rewritten for clarity?
Should private history remain public?
Should a source be prominent because it is historically important or because it is useful to a current reader?
There is no universal answer.
The intended result supplies the criterion.
An archive is not improved merely by becoming larger.
It becomes more coherent when the people maintaining it can say what they intend the body of work to make possible.

A reflection on archives and publishing: a body of work becomes easier to curate when its intended result is explicit rather than assumed.

A body of work can grow until its original purpose becomes difficult to see.

Audiences arrive through routes the creator never predicted.

At that point, curation needs an intended result.

Discovery, public access, historical record, community, revenue, and personal legacy can each produce different editorial decisions.

Without an explicit purpose, those decisions begin competing silently.

Should an old piece be preserved exactly or rewritten for clarity?

Should a source be prominent because it is historically important or because it is useful to a current reader?

The intended result supplies the criterion.

An archive is not improved merely by becoming larger.

It becomes more coherent when the people maintaining it can say what they intend the body of work to make possible.

A Body of Work Needs an Intended Result