298 College & Research Libraries March 2018

policies and bureaucracy. Personnel management is covered in chapters on dealing 
with problem employees, managing a diverse department, providing professional 
development and training, mentoring and coaching, and managing change. A chapter 
on managing between library administration and employees and a chapter on man-
aging as a team provides some exposure to organizational management. These two 
chapters, along with the two on change and bureaucracy, provide insight on the fact 
that management happens in the context of the organization and culture you are in. 

All of the chapters are relatively short. They do not go into any heavy theory. Each 
chapter cites a few sources from which it has drawn some supportive quotes or ideas. 
The reader will find some quotes not cited. The lack of any citation notation within the 
chapter does make this problematic. With the cited works, the authors also provide 
suggested readings, although the items cited and the suggested readings sometimes 
overlap, giving the same titles. At the end of each chapter, the authors give exercises, 
samples, and worksheets that the reader can use. The exercises include some ques-
tions to be answered and help to apply the content covered in the chapter. Readers 
will have to figure out how they can check their responses to the exercises since no 
answers are given. 

There are many who might benefit from this book. Although it targets current man-
agers, readers currently not in management roles and wanting to think about some 
of the challenges associated with the work will find this a good overview. Someone 
being supervised can also use it to provide feedback to his or her own manager. The 
library’s human resources staff may also find that this is a good tool for providing 
training to new library managers. It is a relatively easy read and is not filled with lots 
of management jargon or theory. Being more on the practical side, the exercises pro-
vided at the end of the chapters allow readers to think about how they might approach 
the tailored problems based on what has been covered in the chapters. The exercises 
also give readers opportunity to discuss their solutions with their own supervisors to 
compare how a seasoned leader might approach the problem. This makes the book a 
good mentoring tool that a senior leader might use to help develop a new manager. 

There is a whole industry that provides information on being a manager. Within 
this book, the reader will find much discussion about familiar management topics. 
Other than the fact that the authors themselves are librarians, one might wonder just 
how much of the book is really about academic libraries. The exercises are library 
focused. Some of the literature cited and some of the suggested readings come from 
the library literature. At times the authors do frame some of the chapter discussions 
as taking place in a library. That is about where its association with academic libraries 
end. That said, if we go back to the title, which indicates that it is a book of quick and 
practical strategies, then readers will find that that is exactly what they get.—Mark E. 
Shelton, College of the Holy Cross

David Thomas, Simon Fowler, and Valerie Johnson. The Silence of the Archive. London: 
Facet Publishing. 2017. 187p. $80.00 (ISBN 978-1783301553). 

In Silence of the Archive, Thomas, Fowler, and Johnson present the case that archives do 
not, and cannot, provide a complete historical record by looking at gaps, or “silences,” 
relative to the contents of archives. There are limits to what archives can provide, 
something that a researcher or casual user may not know. This book helps shed light 
on the silences, enforced and otherwise, that occur within archives. 

Fowler opens chapter 1 with a statement that needs to be considered: archives are 
not neutral spaces. He suggests several reasons for the silence of archives, such as 
records may not exist yet, or never will, due to conflict or oppression by a regime or 
others in power. Materials deemed more historically valuable prevent the selection of 

doi:10.5860/crl.79.2.298



Book Reviews 299

“less important” materials; or deliberately ignoring the 
material dealing with the mundane goings-on of every-
day people. There may be destruction or loss of materials, 
and more. In chapter 2, he discusses user experiences and 
the silence of the archives via the inclusion or exclusion 
of certain materials within a collection and limitations of 
what records communicate to the user. He also considers 
silence in terms of the catalog records extensively, the 
ethics of cataloging, and how the catalog “fails to meet 
user needs because of the inherent biases in the way 
in which it was compiled” (54). Fowler also advocates 
creating a more user-centric or user-friendly archives. 

Thomas, in chapter 3, presents three paradoxes con-
cerning digitization and the silence of the archives: the 
increased destruction of records due to initiatives that 
are meant to create transparency; the mass creation of 

records that may yield less knowledge and information; and the fact that more records 
may mean smaller collections (66). His investigation regarding the first paradox includes 
new challenges with digital records such as digital continuity, the volume of digital 
materials, security, the destruction of archival materials, the neglect (purposeful or 
otherwise) of documentation, and accurate record-keeping. The second paradox ad-
dresses the concern of digitized records being deprived of context and massive amounts 
of records, and researchers not being able to find the information they need. He also 
mentions solutions such as predictive coding that are helping searchers “calculate 
the likely relevance of documents” (87). Authenticity and the challenges in capturing 
digital records are also important to the second paradox. The third paradox refers to 
the increase of digital records and how this changes the position of archives. He asks 
if the move to digital and researchers using services such as Ancestry.com puts the 
archives in a position of disuse. He supports his point using the falling number of visitor 
statistics to the physical archives. Thomas calls for archivists to “readjust their view of 
their collections if they are not to become curators of a silent archive” (95), which is a 
call for survival of the archives as a viable resource for users as well. 

In chapter 4, Johnson addresses silences where assumptions are made, such as 
when a piece of a puzzle a researcher needs does not exist and when truth is silenced 
by artificial voices. Johnson also discusses potential solutions to the problem of these 
specific silences: by giving a voice to the voiceless in multiple capacities and “ensuring 
in the future that more voices are considered in the telling” (113). 

Thomas discusses in chapter 5 how users have dealt with the silence of the archives. 
A positive outcome for such silence is the lending of a voice to works of fiction. Where 
information is lacking, it has created an outlet for fiction and poetry writers to imagine 
events for their craft. However, such silence also has allowed for the forging of records. 
Thomas discusses the forging of documents concerning Joseph Smith, founder of the 
Mormon Church, and provides an extensive and interesting account of falsified and 
forged documents concerning the life and works of Shakespeare, as well as other fake 
documents. The falsification of records can also be malicious and harmful in nature, 
such as the documentation concerning the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 (132–34).

In chapter 6, Johnson addresses the decision to legislate concerning creation and 
release of records, archivists’ role in maintaining voices in the face of the silent archives, 
involving the community in developing “societal memory with their own voice” (151), 
and accepting the silence that cannot be avoided. Johnson also discusses challenges 
with digital community archives. In the last chapter, Thomas discusses the move to 



300 College & Research Libraries March 2018

digital and concerns about users’ ability to access archival records, as well as the notion 
that catalogs themselves are silencers. 

The authors focus on the various silences of the archives and the reasons for their 
existence. This is an engaging and interesting book and would make a great textbook 
for a course in archival theory or a book for the interested curator, archivist, or others 
who work or collaborate with archives. It may be a useful read for historians as well. 
Each chapter provides references and notes, where applicable. 

David Thomas is a Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria, where he is 
involved in research into access to contemporary records. He is the former Director of 
Technology at the National Archives and was responsible for digital preservation and 
access. Simon Fowler is Associate Teaching Fellow at the University of Dundee and 
teaches a course on military archives. He also has nearly 30 years of experience working 
for The National Archives. Valerie Johnson is Interim Director of Research and Collec-
tions at The National Archives and was awarded the Alexander R. Myers Memorial 
Prize for Archive Administration. She has also worked as an archivist and a historian 
in the academic, corporate, and public sectors.—Lizzy Walker, Wichita State University