A Practical Guidebook to Trauma-Informed Archival Practice

Using case studies and examples, this book helps archivists understand the different ways trauma can present in archival workers, patrons, and donors.

A Practical Guidebook to Trauma Informed Archival Practice: Best Practices and Case Studies looks at trauma in archival work through various user perspectives. Understanding the different types of traumas that can be expressed leads to creating policies and workflows that can help reduce the harm caused by potentially traumatic collections.

The authors focus on ways to reduce and minimize trauma across archival work through highlighting:

- The right and wrong ways to work with grieving donors
- How to identify trauma in archival workers and support staff, volunteers, and students before, during, and after exposure to trauma
- Enumerating the many effects of trauma on the body and the brain and offering short term and long-term solutions

This book is the practical guide to dealing with trauma in archives that will help not only the archivists who work with these difficult collections, but also patrons, donors, and users who interact with them.

Author Biography

Michelle Ganz is the Archives Director for the Dominican Sisters of Peace, USA.

Veronica Denison is Assistant Professor and Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the Adams Library at Rhode Island College, USA.