Director of Libraries Publishes Article on Distributed Archives

Elizabeth Dill, Direcfor of the Harrison Libraries, is co-author of an article in Archival Issues: The Distributed Archives Model: A Strategy for Sharing Authority with Partners to Document Communities. The abstract and full citation are below.

Institutional archives with community documentation missions face problems of limited resources and community resistance in developing collections. Inspired by field experience and archival literature, the authors propose one possible solution that can be a stand-alone project or an adjunct to traditional collection development. Their distributed archives model envisions one-on-one partnerships between institutional archives and community partners to share authority over appraisal and selection while leaving custody of community collections with their creators. Institutional partners provide leadership, mentoring, and support, while community partners appraise, select, process, arrange, and describe. This article describes the distributed archives model, examines its advantages and disadvantages, and discusses it in relationship with an increased awareness of social justice concerns in archives, postcustodialism, and shared authority over appraisal between community collection creators and archivists.

Olliff, M. T. & Dill, E., (2021) “The Distributed Archives Model: A Strategy for Sharing Authority with Partners to Document Communities”, Archival Issues 41(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/archivalissues.13204