Privacy Considerations in Archival Practice and Research

Privacy considerations are woven throughout archival practice, from the acquisition and stewardship of archival collections to the generation and retention of patron request records. Drawing on scholarship from archival theorists and practitioners, as well as recent case studies and their own professional experience, the authors present a broad overview of the ethics and practice of privacy throughout the archival life cycle. At each stage, archivists seek a balance between sensitivity to the rights and well-being of creators and subjects and responsibility to researchers and the access mission. For archivists, privacy protections are not about secrecy or exclusivity, but about an ethics of care. Decisions made by archivists related to privacy have broad societal implications related to the understanding of history, the accountability of those in power, the availability of information, and the agency of creators and communities. We approach privacy from two complementary perspectives in archival practice—that of a collections manager and processing archivist working with creators, donors, and their archival collections to determine what privacy considerations may need to be addressed, and that of a reference and instruction archivist, working with students and researchers whose use of archival collections generates data that has its own privacy concerns.