The Encyclopedia of Archival Writers 1515–20151 edited by Luciana Duranti and Patricia C Franks is a remarkable book. Spanning nearly 600 large pages with entries on 144 archival writers by 113 different contributors, many of whom feature themselves as entries, it stands apart from other contemporary publications in the field. The volume provides the archival profession with a way of viewing its history through the lives of its most significant writers and, in so doing, it is an important contribution, and an appropriate companion to the Encyclopedia of Archival Science that appeared in 2015. Duranti and Franks, the editors, the volume’s advisory board, and all the contributors should be congratulated for their labours. Acknowledging from the outset the achievement of the work, whose richness will be highlighted in the coming paragraphs, this review seeks to explore some of the questions this kind of big book raises.

Archives and Records: The Journal of the Archives and Records Association

This book gives the reader not just a comprehensive overview of key archival writers, but also the essence and overview of streams in archival theory. It is an excellent entrance to key archival literature - a lexicon to use while writing your thesis or article.

Tove Engvall, Lecturer in Archives and Information Science, Mid Sweden University

This remarkable Encyclopedia places the most important archival writers on both sides on the Atlantic at your fingertips. It significantly facilitates the understanding of the challenges archivists have met over the last five centuries. Students will get easy access to archival theories and methods in the context in which they were developed, while archival professionals will discover facts and aspects of archival knowledge previously unknown to them.

Michel Pfeiffer, Professor, University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur