Terry Eastwood

Terence M. Eastwood (born 1943) is best known for his pioneering roles in archival education internationally and the creation of archival descriptive standards in Canada. He has published widely on a number of topics of importance to the development of archival theory and has lectured and presented throughout the world. His work supervising archival studies students helped craft a whole new generation of archivists who themselves have gone on to make important contributions to the field.

Education and career Terry Eastwood received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in History and French from the University of Alberta in 1965. He followed his BA with a Diploma in Education in Secondary studies from the University of Victoria in 1972 and a Master of Arts in History from the University of Alberta in 1977. Eastwood taught at a number of schools, including Taihape College in Taihape, New Zealand in 1966 and several secondary schools in British Columbia from 1967 to 1973. In 1973 he left the world of secondary education to become an archivist working in the Manuscripts and Government Records Division at the Provincial Archives of British Columbia. He also served as the secretary of the Public Documents Committee. Eastwood was also a member of the Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards of the Bureau of Canadian Archivists from 1991-1996. The Committee was responsible for producing the Rules for Archival Description, finalized in 1996, which constitute a bilingual national standard in Canada.

Awards and distinctions

Eastwood was made a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 1990 and the Association of Canadian Archivists in 2007. He was presented with a Twenty-years Service Award from the Archives Association of British Columbia in 1993, and made an Honorary Member of the association in 2007.

Significance and legacy

The masters of archival studies offered at the University of British Columbia in 1981 was the first program dedicated to the study of archival science in North America. Eastwood, as the first professor and later chair of the program, developed an appropriate curriculum, obtained the support of the Canadian and international archival profession, trained and mentored hundreds of students and lectured and wrote widely on the topic of the necessity for archival education. The latter was a particularly vigorous fight; many archivists who had library or history degrees and who had on-the-job training opposed the increased emphasis on dedicated masters level archival education.

The report Towards Descriptive Standards: Report and Recommendations of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards, which Eastwood co-edited with Jean Dryden in 1985, is a classic text, required reading for anyone interested in the development of standards in Canada. As a member of the Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards Eastwood contributed to a work of collaborative intellectual effort, and the product of the committee, the Rules for Archival Description, has made a significant impact on the archival profession nationally and internationally and on institutional practice in Canada and elsewhere.

Through his writings, consultations, and international teaching, Eastwood advocated for the improvement of the development of archival education in universities the world over.

To date Eastwood has published over 50 articles on arrangement and description, appraisal, archives and accountability, the history of archival institutions and other subjects in a wide variety of journals and written and edited a number of seminal books on archival theory and practice. These have contributed substantially to the development of archival science.