Barbara L. Craig, Founding Fellow 

Highlights

Accomplished scholar and archival educator at University of Toronto specializing in the history of record-keeping, medical archives, and archival theory; co-founder of I-CHORA; former archivist and records management advisor at the Archives of Ontario, ACA president, and Archivaria General Editor. 

Education and Background 

Born in Toronto, Barbara Lazenby Craig received a BA (1966) and an MA (1967) in History, both from McMaster University. While working, she earned a diploma in Principles and Administration of Archives from the Public Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada), followed by an Ontario government Certificate in Records Management. In 1988 Craig achieved her PhD in Archives Studies at the University of London with a  dissertation titled “Hospital Records in London, England and the Province of Ontario, Canada, 1880 to 1950.” 

Professional Career 

Barbara Craig began serving as an archivist at the Archives of Ontario in 1970, continuing there for 18 years. She took responsibility for the archival records of the Ministry of Health. She also had a role in records management for public general hospitals in the province. During this period Craig also concurrently began serving as an educator, beginning in 1978 when she presented the Toronto Area Archivist Group Archives Course, and from that time forward she has provided workshops, post-appointment training, institutes, seminars, and taken lead roles in organizing conferences, such as the I-CHORA conferences.  

In 1989 (the year Craig achieved her doctorate) she left to take up the position of University Archivist and Head of Archives and Special Collection at York University. In this role she published a guide to the archives holdings. 

In 1994 Craig became a fulltime educator, joining the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto; she was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and full professor in 2009. As a professor she has taught graduate courses to hundreds of students, supervised Masters theses and Doctoral dissertations, and has often served as an external examiner. Meanwhile Craig has undertaken extensive research into hospital archives in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and has published widely on the history of record-keeping, the history of medicine and medical archives, and archival theory. A leading archival scholar, she has presented her ideas at many conferences and meetings within Canada and internationally, authored, edited or co-authored several books, contributed dozens of articles and book reviews to journals including Archivaria, Archival Science, American Archivist, and the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. 

Contributions to the Profession 

Craig was a founding member of the ACA, serving as president (1983-1984), as well as serving on the Archivaria editorial board (2000-2006), and as Archivaria General Editor (2002 to 2004). She has also served in various capacities on the Canadian Council of Archives and the International Council on Archives, and chaired the Ontario Council of Archives (later the Archives Association of Ontario) from 1989 to 1993.  

Craig co-organized the first International Conference on the History of Records and Archives (I-CHORA) in 2003, along with Philip Eppard and Heather MacNeil. She was an active member of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) from 1999 onwards, serving on projects 1 through 3. Craig has also served as a director of the Ontario Women’s History Network. 

Honours, Awards and Recognition 

• Archivaria W. Kaye Lamb Prize, 1990 
• ACA Fellow, 2008 
• Archives Association of Ontario James J. Talman Award, 2010 

Further Information 

• Barbara Craig, Archival appraisal: theory and practice. Munchen: K.G. Saur, 2004. 
• Marshall Furness, Amy (2019). "Barbara L. Craig". In Duranti; Franks, Patricia C. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Archival Writers, 1515-2015. Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 155–157. ISBN978-1538125809.  

Photo source: photo provided by Barbara Craig.

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