> Franklin County North Carolina has 60,000 people. Typically, rural historical societies are neither staffed nor equipped to handle significant archival tasks

> Franklin County North Carolina has 60,000 people. Typically, rural historical societies are neither staffed nor equipped to handle significant archival tasks - often they are a mix of younger reinactors and artisans, and older folk interested in curating. That they did not own a scanner suggests the sophistication of the organization. This is absolutely the typical case. Archiving various kinds of documents is hard. Professional archivists generally have a Masters degree in Library Science or a similar field. When there are many kinds of records (paper, photo, etc) it is difficult to start the process and handle things correctly.