Archival literature is full of what we do and how we do it. In Archival Virtue, Scott Cline raises questions that grapple with the meaning of what we do and, perhaps more important, who we are. A book about archivists as individuals and as community, Archival Virtue explores ideas of moral commitment, truth, difference, and just behavior in the pursuit of archival ideals.

Scott Cline is a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), two-time winner of the SAA Fellows' Ernst Posner Award, and a recipient of SAA's C. F. W. Coker Award. His scholarly interests are in the areas of virtue theory, ethics and morality, and relationship in the archival setting. He was the founding archivist and served as director of the Seattle Municipal Archives from 1985 to 2016. He was a lecturer at the University of Washington's Information School for two decades. Cline is a former member of the SAA Council and past president of the Academy of Certified Archivists and Northwest Archivists. He serves on the SAA Foundation Board and completed three terms as board president.

acknowledgments ix

preface xiii

introduction 1

part one archival being 17

chapter one Being and Faith 19
chapter two Archival Covenant 35

part two archival citizenship 51
chapter three The Archival Citizen 53
chapter four Memory as Justice 75
chapter five Archival Validity 99

part three archival spirituality 119
chapter six Archival Transcendence 121
chapter seven Spirituality and Archival Culture 141
chapter eight Moral Order 163

about the author 173

notes 174

table of contents