Donors and Donor Agency: Implications for Private Archives Theory and Practice
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Donors of archival fonds are largely neglected in our professional literature, and yet for many archives, donors are essential to building a rich and vibrant collection. Though archivists have a wealth of practical experience with donors, there is a paucity of research and reflection about them. The role of donors deserves greater inquiry. Donors introduce a dynamic element to the archival process, bringing their own values, ideas, and interests. Examining donors through the concept of agency, as developed in the social sciences, reveals that they exercise significant influence on key archival functions, which in our theoretical models are generally treated as the sole purview of archival professionals. Donor relations are negotiated, perhaps even contested ground that ultimately shapes the surviving documentary record of society. What are the implications of donor agency for archival practice? What motivates donors to offer their material to an archives? How does donor interaction influence the acquisition and appraisal environment? How should we adapt archival models to reflect the reality of donors in private archives more accurately? This article explores donors and donor agency, arguing for their place in archival theory. RÉSUMÉ Les donateurs des fonds d’archives sont largement omis de nos écrits scientifiques, et pourtant pour plusieurs centres d’archives, les donateurs sont à la base de la constitution d’une collection riche et vivante. Bien que les archivistes aient une très grande expérience pratique avec les donateurs, il existe une lacune au niveau de la recherche et de la pensée critique à leur égard. Le rôle des donateurs mérite une plus grande place dans la recherche. Les donateurs ajoutent un élément dynamique aux processus archivistiques, en y apportant leurs valeurs, idées et intérêts. Examiner les donateurs par l’entremise du concept de l’agence, tel qu’énoncé par les sciences sociales, révèle qu’ils exercent une influence importante sur les fonctions de base de l’archivistique qui, dans nos modèles théoriques, sont généralement considérées comme étant le domaine exclusif des professionnels en archivistique. Les relations avec les donateurs sont négociées, peut-être même contestées, ce qui façonne ultimement les traces documentaires existantes de la société. Quelle est la portée des agents donateurs pour la pratique archivistique? Qu’est-ce qui motive les donateurs à offrir leur matériel aux archives? Comment l’interaction avec les donateurs influence l’environnement de l’acquisition et de l’évaluation? Comment devrait-on adapter les modèles archivistiques afin de mieux refléter la réalité des donateurs d’archives privées? Cet article examine les donateurs et les agents donateurs, revendiquant leur juste place dans la théorie archivistique.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.058 | 0.087 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.017 | 0.052 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.030 | 0.029 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.016 |
| Research integrity | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.025 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".