Laura Millar 

Highlights

Internationally renowned archival scholar, teacher, curriculum developer, and pioneering archival consultant who has worked with governments, universities, charities, Indigenous communities, and other groups around the world; one of the first graduates of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Master of Archival Studies (MAS) program. 

Education and Background 

Born in the United States to Canadian parents, Laura Agnes Millar was raised in New England and British Columbia. She received a BA in History and English (1981) and a Master of Archival Studies degree (1984) from the University of British Columbia (UBC). She completed her PhD in Archive Studies at University College London (1996). 

Professional Career 

Laura Millar has worked for over 40 years as an independent consultant in records, archives, and information management, as well as in publishing and distance education. She has consulted with governments, universities, professional and non-profit associations,and other agencies around the world, and she has published and lectured widely. In her work, Millar has focused on records and archives management capacity building, to support the protection of authentic and reliable evidence for transparency and accountability. 

In the 1980s Millar began designing, developing and teaching both face-to-face and distance-based courses in archives management, editing, and publishing. publishing. In 1991 she undertook a project with the British Columbia Archives and Records Service (now Royal BC Museum and Archives) to develop a series of community-based archival training courses for use throughout the province. These courses were later delivered across Canada. She taught at UBC, University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, and University of Toronto.From 1994 to 2009 she oversaw the development of two series of educational modules for the InternationalRecords Management Trust (IRMT): the first on archives management (completed in 2000); the second onelectronic records management (completed in 2009). 

Millar has worked with such agencies as the United Nations, the World Bank, IRMT, Open University of Sri Lanka, Simon Fraser University, the United Church of Canada, UNESCO, and national and state-level governments including Hong Kong, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Alaska, Ontario, Northwest Territories, and Alberta. She has been an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London, England since2018. 

Contributions to the Profession 

Laura Millar served for more than ten years (2004-2015) on the Archivaria Editorial Board and has volunteered for provincial, national and international associations, including the Australian Society of Archivists, the International Council on Archives, and UNESCO’s Canadian Advisory Committee for Memory of the World. 

Millar has authored dozens of scholarly articles and books on topics as diverse as the total archives tradition, recordkeeping and accountability, the Canadian Archival Information Network, the concept of the fonds, and the relationship between personal and collective memory. She is the author of professional manuals, handbooks, reports, and education modules directed toward practitioners in diverse international environments.  

Honours, Awards and Recognition 

• Archivaria W. Kaye Lamb Prize, 2003 and 2015 
• UBC School of Library, Archives and Information Studies Alumni Service and Leadership Award, 2011 
• Society of American Archivists Waldo Gifford Leland Award, for Archives: Principles and Practices, 2011 
• ACA Fellow, 2016 
• BC Museums Association Change Maker award, 2017 
• International Council on Archives Fellow, 2022 

Further Information 

• MacNeil, Heather. “Laura Millar.” In The Encyclopedia of Archival Writers, 1515-2015. Edited by Luciana Duranti and Patricia C. Franks. Lanham, ML: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015. 

Photo source: https://www.lauramillar.ca/  

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