75%+ of CRM archaeology reports are buried in state filing cabinets

Cultural Resource Management firms produce thousands of archaeological reports annually — estimated at 4,000+ per year in England alone — but the vast majority are 'gray literature' that never gets published in journals or digitized. These reports sit in paper format in individual State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) libraries, accessible only by physically visiting that specific office. This means a researcher in California studying pueblo architecture cannot access a relevant CRM report filed in New Mexico's SHPO without traveling there. The real pain: because excavation destroys the site permanently, these reports are often the only record of what was found. When they are inaccessible, the same types of sites get re-excavated elsewhere without the benefit of prior findings, wasting limited CRM budgets and destroying more of the archaeological record unnecessarily. This persists because CRM firms are paid by developers to clear regulatory hurdles, not to advance knowledge — there is zero financial incentive to publish, and no regulatory requirement to digitize or share reports beyond filing them with the state.