Compliance and Collections: Making Medical Archives More Accessible
Presentation Type
Lightning Talk
Date
2025-11-20
Description
Curators and archivists working with medical collections often face a difficult balancing act: promoting access to important historical materials while upholding legal and ethical responsibilities around privacy. At the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, we have navigated this challenge by actively engaging with institutional compliance officers and revisiting legacy restrictions in light of current HIPAA guidelines. In this lightning talk, I will share how our department undertook a multi-year effort to review and open access to previously restricted collections. Rather than a "how-to," this presentation offers a case study that may inspire similar work elsewhere. Our process began with a detailed inventory of our manuscript holdings to identify materials with potential HIPAA concerns. We then worked closely with our institution’s compliance officer—not only to explain the nature and value of our collections, but also to build mutual understanding about privacy risks and research needs. The result was a memo that clarifies how archival staff can responsibly provide access within the bounds of the law. We also developed workflows for processing and flagging sensitive content more effectively. By demystifying our approach, I hope to spark ideas for how other institutions might rethink restrictive practices and build stronger relationships with their compliance teams.
Keywords
MIRL Symposium, 2025 MIRL Symposium, lightning talk
Rights and Permissions
Copyright © 2025 The Author.
Repository Citation
Cashwell, Meggan, "Compliance and Collections: Making Medical Archives More Accessible" (2025). Medical Institutional Repositories in Libraries (MIRL) Symposium. 19.
https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/mirl/2025/program/19
Compliance and Collections: Making Medical Archives More Accessible
Curators and archivists working with medical collections often face a difficult balancing act: promoting access to important historical materials while upholding legal and ethical responsibilities around privacy. At the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, we have navigated this challenge by actively engaging with institutional compliance officers and revisiting legacy restrictions in light of current HIPAA guidelines. In this lightning talk, I will share how our department undertook a multi-year effort to review and open access to previously restricted collections. Rather than a "how-to," this presentation offers a case study that may inspire similar work elsewhere. Our process began with a detailed inventory of our manuscript holdings to identify materials with potential HIPAA concerns. We then worked closely with our institution’s compliance officer—not only to explain the nature and value of our collections, but also to build mutual understanding about privacy risks and research needs. The result was a memo that clarifies how archival staff can responsibly provide access within the bounds of the law. We also developed workflows for processing and flagging sensitive content more effectively. By demystifying our approach, I hope to spark ideas for how other institutions might rethink restrictive practices and build stronger relationships with their compliance teams.