Document Type

Article

Faculty Sponsor

Meghan Courtney

Publication Date

January 2024

Abstract

This article examines the problem of fraudulent and stolen materials being introduced into archives. If these issues become common enough, people will not trust archives or history itself. Archivists can fight these problems by learning how to spot potential sellers of stolen or fraudulent items. They can also catalog unique aspects of their collections and share them on the internet, dedicate more resources to security, and hire experts when items’ authenticity is called into question. The most helpful step they can take, however, is being so diligent about establishing provenance that provenance becomes a security measure in itself. Ultimately, resources and funding will determine how much archives do to ensure their collections’ integrity.

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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