Definition:
noun ~ a summary of guidelines in the principal areas of professional conduct and acceptable behaviors for members of the archival profession
Notes:
The first formal code of ethics for the archival profession, "The Archivist's Code," was developed by the National Archives for use in the National Archives In-service Training Program and printed in The American Archivist in 1955 (Horn, 1989). The Society of American Archivists (SAA) approved its first official code of ethics in 1980. The SAA Code was first revised in 1992, when an ample commentary was added, then again in 2005, when the commentary was removed (Cox, 2008), and most recently in 2012.
Other codes exist, such as the Code of Ethics adopted by the International Council on Archives in 1996.
All of these codes try with varying degrees of emphasis to establish guidelines for resolving conflicts which arise from duties owed to the different parties concerned with archives: records creators, donors, researchers and the archivist's institution. (Dingwall, 2004; Jimerson, 2006).
Citations:
“The Archivist's Code,” National Archives and Records Administration (1955).
Cox, Richard J. “Archival Ethics: The Truth of the Matter,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59, no. 7 (2008): 1128–1133.
Dingwall, G. “Trusting Archivists: The Role of Archival Ethics in Establishing Public Faith,” American Archivist, 67 (2004): 11–30.
Horn, D.E. “The Development of Ethics in Archival Practice,” American Archivist, 52, no. 1 (1989): 64–71.
Jimerson, Randall C. “Ethical Concerns for Archivists,” The Public Historian, 28, no. 1 (2006): 87–92.
“SAA Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics,” Society of American Archivists.
Call for Case Studies in Archival Ethics:
SAA’s Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct invites you to submit a case study drawn from real life that address one or more of the areas covered by the Code of Ethics for Archivists. The goal is to develop a series of case studies that address each aspect of the code and that are based on actual situations.
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