Article Abstracts, pt.1

Virtually all of my articles relate to privacy issues in archives, as that is a major research interest of mine. A concern in archives for some time has been "third-party" donations--correspondence and other documents that were in the possession of the donating party, but not originated by them. As technology advances, archives go online, and collections are frequently made available while the subjects are still living, the debate has become even more heated and pressing.

Hodson, Sara S. "Private Lives: Confidentiality in Manuscripts Collections." Rare Books and

Manuscript Librarianship. 6. (1991): 108-118. Print.

Hodson examines the issue of “third-party donors” in a direct manner, asserting that the “primary” donor is still the best resource for gathering information about a collection. She raises certain concerns, such as collections acquired and accessioned with “inappropriate restrictions” attached (a given example is “no Jews”) which are later quietly lifted, and whether instituting restrictive rules of use would allow for those to ever change. Hodson advocates for a case-by-case treatment of archival collections simply because each one is in fact a special case, but also champions caution and restraint. The fear that archivists should have, Hodson argues, is far more ethical than legal, yet those in favor of more restrictive archival policies concentrate almost entirely on the legal aspects.

Kirby, M.D. "Access to Information and Privacy: The Ten Information Commandments."

Archivaria. 23 (Winter 1986-87): 4-15. Print.

Kirby looks at privacy in the face of growing information technology and the need to regulate. He lays down a set of “commandments”. One of the chief problems he sees is that of “old laws, new world”, which lies at the heart of every internet piracy debate and proposed legislation. He puts forward the need for “informed observers” who have no stake in the outcome, yet understand the concepts involved and can act and react accordingly--again, the lack of informed policymakers is at the root of many (non-)resolutions. While the article is a bit dated, having been written in 1986, many of the concerns that Kirby addresses are still valid now, some even more in light of SOPA and similar proposals. Kirby’s language is also frank and direct--an updated set of commandments in this style would be easily accessible to the layman and useful in explaining the issues facing information technologies, both public and private.

MacNeil, Heather. "Defining the Limits of Freedom of Inquiry: The Ethics of Disclosing

Personal Information held in Government Archives." Archivaria. 32 (Summer 1991): 138-144. Print.

MacNeil sets out to define a utilitarian approach to the moral use of personal information. The common guidelines in archives is to be cautious while still providing as much material as possible, supplemented with a liberal take-down policy. MacNeil argues that this approach is a cost-benefit model with no tangible benefit or cost. She argues instead for a “rights-based analysis” that is rooted in Kantian philosophy. Under this proposal, personal consent or confirmed public domain is the only tenable course of action--because of the Kantian input, anything that is not personal consent contributes to an overall loss of privacy that is not to be tolerated by an ethical people. MacNeil acknowledges that this would actively hamstring efforts to make archives available to patrons, or even archive a great deal of material in the first place, but she asserts that this is merely the price of a more ethical society.