Person

Duranti, Luciana

1950-

Luciana Duranti was a Professor at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool (the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies), an appointment she has held from 1987 - 2023. She was a part of developing the curriculum for the Master of Archival Studies degree, teaching courses on diplomatics, records appraisal for selection and acquisition, preservation of digital records and advanced archival theory. Additionally, she helped develop educational guidelines for the education of Canadian archivists. Before her UBC appointment, she was a Researcher Professor in the Special School for Archivists and Librarians at the University of Rome (1982 – 1987); served as State Archivist in the State Archives of Rome (1978 – 1982); and was a Project Archivist for the Italian National Research Council (1974 – 77). Duranti is renowned for her series of articles on diplomatics, published in Archivaria between 1989 and 1992, and for serving as the director of InterPARES since 1998.

InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) is a multi-national and multi-disciplinary research project studying the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records. Interpares means “amongst peers” in Latin, making the acronym appropriate for such an internationally collaborative project. The Project was divided into four phases, stemming from the results of an earlier research project between Luciana Duranti, Terry Eastwood, and the Department of Defense called The Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records or the UBC project (1994-1997), which focused on maintaining the authenticity and trustworthiness of records throughout their life cycle. Phase 1 of the InterPARES project (1999-2001) focused on the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records. Phase 2 of the project (2002-2007) continued researching authenticity in electronic records, focusing on experiential, interactive and dynamic records. InterPARES 3, or Theoretical Elaborations into Archival Management (TEAM), which ran from 2006-2014, worked to apply the findings of the first two projects to smaller archival institutions. The fourth phase, or InterPARES Trust, ran from 2012 to 2019 and focused on the trustworthiness of records and data in online environments. For further information on the InterPARES projects and results, review http://www.interpares.org/.

In addition to the research for InterPARES, Duranti has been the lead investigator for many SSHRC-funded research projects, such as Records in the Clouds and Digital Records Forensics, all accessible from the Center for the International Study of Contemporary Records and Archives (CISCRA). She has published extensively in the areas of archival diplomatics and archival theory and has presented at conferences around the globe. She served on the Association of Canadian Archivists as President between 2017-2018 and was the co-chair of the Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives from 2018 - 2020.