Donor Relations Bibliography

Selected readings on working with archival donors

Carbajal, Itza A. “The Politics of Being and Archival Donor: Defining the Affective Relationship Between Archival Donors and Archivists,” in “Radical Empathy in Archival Practice” special issue of Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 3, no. 2 (2021). https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/114/81

Fisher, Rob. “Donors and Donor Agency: Implications for Private Archives Theory and Practice,” in Archivaria 79 (Spring 2015). https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13528/14876

Garbett-Styger, Megan. Death, dying and archives: learning to work with grieving and dying donors. Master’s thesis, WWU Graduate School Collection (2014). https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/395/

Kinsley, Caroline and Stothery-Maurer. “Relationships Matter: Unpacking Personal and Professional Grief in Archival Labor,” in Journal of Western Archives Vol 15 Issue 1 (2024). https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol15/iss1/8/

Purcell, Aaron D. Donors and Archives: A Guidebook for Successful Programs. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Ruschiensky, Carmen. “Meaning-Making and Memory-Making in the Archives: Oral History Interviews with Archives Donors,” Archivaria 84 (Fall 2017).
https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13615/15000

Skeem, Dainan M. “Donor Relations in the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Western Archives Vol 9, issue 1 (2018).
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol9/iss1/9/

Wexler, Geoff and Long, Linda. “Lifetimes, Legacies, and the Needs of Aging and Dying Donors,” in American Archivist, Vol 72 (Fall/Winter 2009). https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e85aff63-b2a5-47a0-a89c-fafbbe18cce6/content

v.2025