NYAC 2016: Careers in Archives

The bronze statue of Samuel de Champlain atop Plattsburgh, New York's Champlain Monument overlooks the lake that bears the explorer's name, 7 June 2016. Champlain never visited what is now Plattsburgh, but many of the area's inhabitants are descendants of the French settlers who arrived in his wake.

Whenever I attend a conference, I make it a point to attend at least one session that isn't directly relevant to my job responsibilities or my career path. It gives me the chance to put aside my preoccupations for a bit and to look at my profession from a slightly different perspective, at least for a little while, and I always find it refreshing.

When I was at the 2016 meeting of the New York Archives Conference in Plattsburgh, last Friday, I attended "Careers in Archives: The Ins and Outs," which focused on the varied career paths within archives and brought together five experienced archivists and allied professionals who have taken on archival responsibilities:

• Jane Subramanian, SUNY Potsdam (emerita) 
• John Thomas, Jefferson Community College 
• Susannah Fout, Lake Placid Olympic Museum 
• Anastasia Pratt, SUNY Empire State College and Clinton County Historian 
• Susan Hughes, American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association 

The session was aimed at graduate students and new professionals, but I found it quite useful from the perspective of a mid-career archivist who regularly works with interns, dispenses the odd bit of career advice to graduate students, and who occasionally sits on a hiring committee. If you're new to the field or come into contact with people who are just finding their professional footing, I'll think you'll find the points that the panelists made extremely interesting. In the interest of brevity, I've organized them thematically.

Securing one's first professional job

• An MLS/MIS degree from an American Library Association-accredited school remains the gold standard. If you want a job in a specialized library, specialized coursework is a good idea. However, if you insinuate yourself into an institution or find yourself taking on archival work without having had formal training, you can now pursue an MLS/MIS online. 
• If you're committed to working in a given institution or a given region, you might have to take a related job and bide your time. One panelist who wanted to work with an archives/local history collection took a librarian position within the same institution, waited until the archives/local history librarian retired, and then approached the library director about transferring into the position. 
• There are a lot of small museums, historical societies, and libraries out there, and there's a very good chance that you will be employed by such an institution at some point in your career. 
• Do not limit yourself to archives-specific or library-specific jobs; archival skills translate very well to registrar and collections manager positions. 
• You need to know how historians do research. If you can fit a historical research methods course into your schedule, by all means do so. 
• If you're interested in working in a corporate archives, look for job postings on their websites, the American Association of State and Local History website (especially for internship positions), and www.indeed.com as well as archives-specific listservs and websites. News of openings is sometimes spread by word of mouth, so network with board members if you can. Private businesses hire staff more quickly than non-profits, so proactively submitting a resume never hurts. 
• A number of organizations provide grants to local governments and historical records repositories, and working as a short-term consultant or project archivist is one way to get your foot in the door; however, you should be aware that consulting work, in particular, has serious income tax implications. Contact grant funders and ask if they maintain a list of consultants. Watch their websites for news of awards and contact recipients as soon as announcements are made; recipients often don't hire a consultant until after they have received a grant and may need to get their project started quickly. 
• Familiarize yourself with the organization to which you're applying; look at its website and its finding aids. Hiring committees can tell if you haven't done your homework. 
• Have someone else proofread your resume or curriculum vitae; most of the panelists indicated that they have seen resumes that contained multiple errors – and promptly discarded them. 
• If asked to submit a resume, do not send a curriculum vitae – and vice versa. 
• Your cover letter is your chance to distinguish yourself from all the other candidates. Be sure that it addresses all of the main points in the job posting. Again, have someone else proofread it. 
• Search committees are not looking for people who know everything. They are looking for people who know what they do know, what they don't know, and have some ideas about how they're going to learn what they don't know. (This is such an important point. The archival learning curve is infinite, and I would be deeply wary about hiring anyone who seemed convinced that s/he already knew all s/he needed to know.) 
• A job interview is a two-way process. At the same time it gives your prospective employer a chance to evaluate you, it gives you the chance to evaluate your prospective employer. (Having heard my fair share of horror stories, I offer the following advice: if you walk out of an interview with the sense that your prospective employer is dysfunctional, think very, very carefully before accepting a job offer!) 
• Walking out of an interview wishing you had said X is a very common experience. A post-interview thank you letter allows you to say it. 

Succeeding in one's first (or second, or third . . . ) professional job

• If you are working in a smaller organization, be prepared to wear many hats. In smaller institutions, the roles of curator, registrar, and archivist are often rolled into one. You may also have fundraising, research, publicity, social media, tourism promotion, and ticket sales responsibilities. You will almost certainly have at least some IT responsibilities. In academic settings, you may have both library and archival responsibilities. 
• Being pulled in multiple directions can be frustrating, but it can also enable you to learn new skills and make valuable contacts. One panelist who held a joint library/archives appointment found that the extensive faculty contacts she developed in her capacity as a librarian proved very handy when she decided she wanted to start an archives instruction program for undergraduates. 
• Seek ways to make your collections more visible and accessible. Space is always limited and administrators are always looking to ensure that it is used as effectively as possible, so you want to be sure that your collections are being used. 
• Making connections and pointing people to resources held by other repositories will be an essential component of your job. Depending upon your repository's collecting scope and researcher community, you may need to acquaint yourself with the staff and the holdings of repositories not only in your region but also in other states or nations. 
• Continuing education is a must. Certificate of advanced study programs, online and in-person professional development workshops, and professional conferences will help you maintain and expand your knowledge and skills and make essential professional connections. 
• If you are your employer's first professional archivist, tackling an extensive processing backlog may be your first assignment. You'll need to be able to figure out how to establish appropriate legal and intellectual control over your holdings – and to do so without a lot of staff or money. Solid organizational skills are a must. 
• Prepare to steel yourself against poor-quality or out-of-scope donations – and to train colleagues and volunteers to do the same. 
• Don't be satisfied with your collections as they are. Know what you don't have, and be prepared to do the work needed to expand your holdings. 
• It's 2016. Even lone arrangers working in small organizations have electronic records in their holdings now. Be prepared to care for them.

Greetings . . . and groans

In late February, I moved my parents from their condominium in northeastern Ohio to a retirement community in Troy, New York. The experience was intense, chaotic, and at times deeply surreal and hilarious, and it dragged on far longer than anyone thought possible. I made the common mistake of thinking that life would settle down relatively quickly after my parents arrived in Troy, and of course it didn't. My dad and I are still unpacking the last of the boxes, and we're still in the throes of trying to find new doctors, a new lawyer, and all kinds of other new things.

To make a long story short, between getting my parents settled in and getting back up to speed at work after taking repeated leaves of absence, I just haven't had time to deal with this blog or a lot of other things that are important to me. Fortunately, my parents are now feeling comfortable in their new homes and I'm feeling comfortable about stepping away a bit and getting my own life back into some semblance of order.

It's good to be back. For now, however, I'm going to pass on this horrifying tidbit and call it a day. By now, I'm sure most of you have heard of V. Stiviano, the young woman whose audio recording of the racist rantings of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling recently led to Sterling's lifetime National Basketball Association ban. The news media first reported that Stiviano was Sterling's mistress and some accounts now suggest that she may have been trying to extort him, but Stiviano -- whose educational achievements are apparently rather modest -- insists that she was recording him in her capacity as his "archivist." People, we clearly need to do a better job of letting the world know what archivists do or how one becomes an archivist.

NYS Education Department's Office of Cultural Education seeks an Archives Conservation Specalist 1 (deadline 5 November)

I usually don't post non-electronic records jobs, but this one's kind of special: the New York State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education oversees the State Archives, the State Library, the State Museum, and the State Office of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting.

If you're an experienced paper conservator who likes working with amazing collections and cool colleagues and who lives or would like to live in the historic Hudson Valley, the New York State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education would to hear from you:

The State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education (OCE) is seeking to fill an Archives Conservation Specialist (ACS) 1 position.  Under the direction of an ACS 3, the incumbent will perform conservation/preservation activities for paper-based collections in the Office of Cultural Education.   Collections encompass, but are not limited to, archival holdings, manuscripts, prints, drawings, and maps.  Abiding by the American Institute for Conservation Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice, duties will include, but not be limited to, the following: 

• Examine, treat, document, and house high priority paper based collections and prepare the collections for exhibition;
• Participate in collections stewardship activities and teams,  including: environmental monitoring programs, including operation of dataloggers, reporting of data, and collaboration with facilities managers and building engineers to improve conditions; emergency planning and response, including staff training, maintenance of supplies, protection of collections from hazards, immediate response to disasters, and evaluation and treatment of damaged collections; stacks and storage maintenance and housekeeping; preservation assessment of collections and recommending preventive and remedial preservation action and maintaining documentation of preservation needs and actions; planning and supervising rehousing and processing activities for selected paper based   collections; preparation of selected paper based collections for reformatting initiatives;
• Deliver presentations and demonstrations illustrating conservation principles, techniques and results;
• Provide preservation and conservation advice to government customers and the public;
• Provide advice, assistance, and training to staff as needed and participate in disaster response outreach activities;
• Participate in OCE lab management activities, including maintaining inventory of supplies, and maintenance and use of OCE equipment; an
• Supervise Historic Conservation Technician, interns, and support staff, as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: For provisional appointment, candidates must have a Master’s degree in paper conservation, OR a Bachelor’s degree and two years of experience as a conservation technician with duties including one or more of the following: assisting conservator with conservation lab treatments, such as washing, lining and deacidification; independently carrying out conservation lab treatments, such as dry cleaning, mending, or fabrication of custom storage containers; monitoring and recording environmental conditions; overseeing technical components of micrographics or imaging operations; or assisting conservator with preservation training activities.

The starting salary for this position is $41,170 (in accordance with a collective bargaining agreement, this figure is not negotiable). Within approximately seven years, annual performance increases will bring the successful candidate's salary up to a maximum of $52,552. The State of New York offers a comprehensive package of benefits.

As noted above, the deadline for applying for this position is 5 November 2013. For more information and detailed application instructions, consult the position description.

Spontaneous Scholarships for SAA/CoSA joint annual meeting: June 30 deadline

In 2011, Kate Theimer, who comes up with more good ideas in a single week than I typically manage in an entire year, started the Spontaneous Scholarships, an informal program that helps to defray the cost of attending the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA).  The scholarship pays only the conference registration fee -- applicants must pay their own travel, lodging, and meal costs -- and anyone who feels the need to ask for this form of support is welcome to do so. Kate collects the donations and awards the scholarships by drawing applicants' names out of a hat.  Spontaneous Scholarships helped make it possible for 26 students, new professionals, and other archivists in need to attend SAA's 2011 meeting in Chicago and for 34 people to attend the 2012 meeting in San Diego.

The deadline for applying for a Spontaneous Scholarship or donating to the Spontaneous Scholarship fund is June 30.  If you need a little help getting to the annual meeting this year, simply contact Kate, state that you're applying for a Spontaneous Scholarship, and let her know whether you're a regular or student member of SAA (NB: only SAA members may receive Spontaneous Scholarships). If you're interested in donating to the Spontaneous Scholarship fund, you have multiple options for doing so.  If you can donate only $5.00 or $10.00, that's okay. Every little bit helps.

And if you're going to the joint 2013 annual meeting of SAA and the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), which will be held in New Orleans on 11-17 August, here's a friendly reminder: Friday, 5 July is the deadline for registering at the Early Bird rate.  If you're a full member of SAA or CoSA and fail to register by 5 July, you'll have to pay an additional $50.00.  If you wait until after 15 July, you'll be on the hook for an additional $110.00.

Image: "Renascence" (1998) by Enrique Alferez, New Orleans Botanical Garden, New Orleans, Louisiana, 24 March 2010.

Spontaneous Scholarships for SAA Annual Meeting

Kate T. over at ArchivesNext is a font of amazing ideas that would never in a million years cross my mind. A few days ago, she asked her Facebook friends and Twitter followers to contribute $20.00 each to help a grad student attend this year's annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The contributions quickly exceeded the cost of a single registration fee, and the Spontaneous Scholarships were born.

Here's the deal:

• If you would like to attend the annual meeting but don't have the resources to do so, contact Kate at info[at]archivesnext.com no later than midnight on Friday, 8 July. You do not need to explain why you are requesting one of these scholarships, but you must be an SAA member and note whether you are a regular or student SAA member. Kate will select scholarship winners -- and create a "waiting list" of applicants who will be funded if more donations are received -- by drawing applicants' names from a hat.
  
• If you are in a position to make a donation -- large or small -- to this effort, you can do so via PayPal (there's a handy link on the ArchivesNext homepage) or via snail mail (e-mail Kate for a physical address). Kate will accept donations received after 8 July, but please keep in mind that recipients will need some time to make travel arrangements and that 11 July is the Early Bird registration deadline.

Please note that the Spontaneous Scholarships are meant to defray the annual meeting registration fee and that recipients will be responsible for all travel and lodging costs. However, this is a great opportunity for people whose careers are just starting or are between jobs at the moment, and, as always, I'm once again astounded by the inventive way in which Kate identified a problem and unhesitatingly took practical action. The Spontaneous Scholarships won't fix the larger problem -- the manner in which the annual meeting registration fee inhibits students' and new archivists' participation in SAA -- but they will help several people who might not otherwise be able to attend this year's meeting.

I realize that times are tough and that donating to the Spontaneous Scholarships fund isn't an option for everyone. However, if you are able to do so, please consider making a contribution.

Image: Fireworks over the Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 4 July 2011, 9:03 PM.

Why you shouldn't become an archivist

There are lots of reasons to become an archivist: a passion for ensuring that the past is adequately documented, a desire to help people find information they need and want, and -- for those interested in working in government archives -- the need to safeguard the rights of citizens and to hold government accountable for its decisions and actions.

However, there are also some good reasons not to become an archivist, and Rebecca Goldman, who blogs over at Derangement and Description (and whom I got to meet at MARAC a couple of weeks ago--yay!) and Amy Schindler have produced a video that trenchantly and hilariously enumerates them.

As Rebecca cautions, this video doesn't provide the whole picture; it's best thought of as a counterweight to all the pie-in-the-sky pronouncements made by silver-tongued graduate school admissions directors. I nonetheless recommend it to anyone contemplating becoming an archivist, particularly at this economically grim moment in time. (Oh, and by the way, if you watch this video and still want to be an archivist, keep in mind that you'll not only be dealing with the voluminous paper records of the postwar era but also with the burgeoning electronic records of the digital age. Enjoy!)

I also recommend it to archivists who have the immense good fortune of having reasonably secure employment and extensive professional networks. It's all too easy for those of us who have somehow managed to establish ourselves to avoid thinking about how our profession looks to those going from contract job to contract job, working as technicians despite having mad archival knowledge and skills, or getting out of grad school at a time when the job market seems unremittingly wretched.

Finally, I would be remiss if I neglected to point out that this video isn't the only great thing that Rebecca has done lately. During the dozen-odd years I've been an archivist, I've been moved to tears twice by records that I've processed and once by a post on an archivist's blog. Rebecca's contribution to the It Gets Better Project is astounding, and you owe it to yourself to check it out -- and then share it with your friends.

Best Practices Exchange, day three: educating stewards of public information

The view from a rest stop, Interstate 10, south of Phoenix, Arizona, 1 October 2010.

This is the second of two posts relating to the Policy and Administration 7 session held at the 2010 Best Practices Exchange (BPE). The first part, which concerns the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration's functional classification system, is available here.

Helen Tibbo and Lori Richards discussed the Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21st Century project, an Institute of Museum and Library Services-funded effort to create a joint MPA/MSIS and MPA/MSLS program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This initiative grew out of recognition that archivists, librarians, and other information professionals are responsible for the preservation of an ever-increasing amount of digital materials and must be able to advocate for digital preservation within the policy arena.

To date, two cohorts of students, one of which started last fall and one of which started a few weeks ago, have enrolled in the combined degree program. They will complete their degrees in three and a half years and will complete internships at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the North Carolina State Archives, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Archives, or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Environmental Finance Center.

Helen and Lori then highlighted the skills that 21st century information professionals either must or should have:

• Ability to write short, concise documents that officials will read and can understand
• Strong oral communication skills
• Ability to convince others that records management is important
• Ability to determine who to influence and to cultivate stakeholders
• Ability to develop a business case and to estimate the costs and benefits of programs
• Knowledge of national and international initiatives that inform one's professional activities
• Ability to evaluate policy and its implementation
• Ability to conduct macro-level appraisals (a point of overlap with the Vermont project that Tanya Marshall discussed during the first half of the session)
• Ability to advise government officials about both the technical and the social aspects of preserving and providing access to public information
• Understanding of the fundamentals of consensus building
• Knowledge of how government works and what the different parts of government are
• Knowledge of how the activities of government are conducted in an electronic environment
• Ability to engage in project planning, management, and evaluation
• Knowledge of information flows across the agency and between agencies
• Ability to engage in change management
• Understanding of the legal framework and the legal issues that impact stewardship of digital information

The attendees then engaged in a lively discussion about the need for these skills and the extent to which new archivists and librarians were (or, more accurately, were not) being prepared to meet 21st century challenges. Although a few of the points made consisted of the complaints that seasoned professionals always have about their newer and, in particular, their younger colleagues (e.g., "they don't know how to behave"), many of the comments were substantive and, in my opinion, completely accurate. They centered around three main areas of concern:

• People skills. Given that archivy and librarianship attract disproportionate numbers of introverts, it's not surprising that many new archivists and librarians have unpolished verbal communication skills. The attendees noted that public speaking is a particular problem area and wished that graduate programs devoted more attention to cultivating this skill; one noted that she has referred new colleagues to Toastmasters in order to ensure that they become polished speakers.
• Project skills. New archivists and librarians must be able to demonstrate the ability to develop workable projects and to see them through to completion. Unfortunately, at present, many library/information science programs do not devote sufficient attention to project management.
• Technological skill and comfort level. This is a particular concern of mine: even though future archivists will be responsible for preserving and providing access to an exponentially increasing volume of electronic records and the repository for which I work is located a few miles away from a university that educates future librarians and archivists, I have real difficulty finding interns interested in working with electronic records. Perhaps I'm overseeing some uninteresting projects, but several other attendees have encountered similar problems. Unfortunately, the archival profession is still attracting people who are not comfortable with technology and who want to work only with paper records. This does not bode well for the future.

All in all, a fascinating session, and one that made me start thinking that archival education really needs to change. When I commented during the session that many of the skills listed above were those that I would expect to find in an archivist who was in the middle, not the beginning of his or her career, Helen Tibbo noted that schools of government and public policy strive to ensure that students begin their careers with these skills in hand.

I'm starting to think that a two-year master's program simply isn't sufficient and that we as a profession will eventually have to commit to a three- or four-year graduate program or to a two-year introductory degree and an additional, perhaps mid-career advanced certificate or degree program. The list of skills that archivists need is growing and growing, and our education programs must expand accordingly.

Catching up

The American Southwest, as seen from Continental Airlines Flight 362, 28 September 2010, 4:44 PM Mountain Standard Time.

Sorry for the sparse posting as of late. I'm currently in Phoenix for the 2010 Best Practices Exchange (BPE), and getting ready to spend a few days out of the office took up all of my time. I'll be posting about the BPE during the next few days, but in the meantime here are a few things that you might want to check out:

• Earlier this evening, Academy Award^®-winning actor and passionate proponent of civics education Richard Dreyfuss received the 2010 Empire State Archives and History Award from the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. This morning, Dreyfuss spoke to WAMC morning host Joe Donahue about the award and the value of civics education, and you can listen to their discussion here. WXXA has just posted a brief clip of his
• In other Richard-related news, Digital Preservation Pioneer Richard Pearce-Moses, formerly of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, was the subject of a great profile concerning his new gig: he's the first director of Clayton State University's Master of Archival Studies program. Unlike most other American archival programs, the program that Richard is building is fully free-standing; it's not part of a larger library/information science or history program. It's going to be really interesting to see what Richard does with this program and whether it leads to the creation of more archives-centric graduate programs.
• The cover story of last Sunday's New York Times Magazine highlights the complicated, fraught, and -- there really no other word for it -- Kafkaesque custodial history of some of Franz Kafka's manuscripts.
• Microsoft expects that Blu-Ray discs will soon become obsolete, but Jason Mick at Daily Tech and Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star note that, for a variety of reasons, commercially produced Blu-Ray discs and DVDs will no doubt be around for a little longer than the entertainment industry might like.

Gartner: growing need for digital archivists

Here's an interesting tidbit: information technology research and consulting firm Gartner predicts that evolving business needs will compel enterprise IT managers to fill four emerging information management roles -- either by establishing new positions within their units and expanding their recruitment pools or by establishing alliances within the enterprise:

Business Information Managers who can manage the operations of both a business unit and the IT that supports the unit.

Enterprise Information Architects who can add structure and context and thus increase the efficiency and reusability of information resources.

Legal/IT Hybrids who can create "policies and schedules, help design and execute discovery exercises for regulators, and mediate between legal and IT departments." Records managers, in particular, ought to pay attention to this one: according to Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Debra Logan

IT leaders with responsibility for information management have been in a stalemate for more than five years over what to do about legacy information, how long information should be kept, and what the legal precedent is for doing so . . . . The lawyers won't tell companies what to do, but they won't listen to anyone but other lawyers. The records managers want to implement retention schedules as they did in the paper world, and IT departments just want someone to tell them what to do with all the e-mail that is bringing their exchange servers to their knees and all the personal folders clogging the storage devices.

Logan anticipates that security personnel who get some legal retraining or attorneys who receive some IT training will fill this role, which of course begs the question of what will happen to records managers. Will they be able to upskill by taking both IT and legal training, or will the IT professionals and the attorneys gradually eclipse them? As someone who firmly believes that records managers possess a distinctive and valuable perspective and set of skills, I'm firmly hoping for the former.

Digital archivists will "appraise, arrange and preserve digital records for legal and regulatory purposes," and -- check this out, all you electronic records archivists and info science grad students -- Gartner projects that by 2012, approximately 15 percent of corporations will "add someone in a digital-archivist role"; in 2009, less than 1 percent of companies did so. According to Debra Logan, the need for digital archivists is great:

Organisations typically have vast quantities of records, which require specialist expertise to access, appraise and preserve . . . . This isn't a job for conscientious users to perform if they have time; it requires training and expertise. If you have never heard of persistent uniform resource locators (PURLs), don't know what PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) is and are unaware that there are reasons why Portable Document Format (PDF) is not a suitable preservation format for e-mail, you need a digital curator.

Gartner explicitly notes that candidates for digital archivist positions "can be found in library and information science (LIS) schools." If its projections pan out, those of you in grad school might start seeing more and more corporate recruitment efforts. Interestingly, Gartner notes that "existing employees nearing the end of their careers" might also make good digital archivists, so those of us already actively involved in electronic records and digital curation work might find that our professional literature is getting more and more attention -- and that seasoned IT professionals are turning up in LIS courses and continuing education workshops.

The next few years are going to be really interesting, aren't they? I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Sorry for the light blogging as of late, folks: I was sidelined by a nasty cold last week. Now that I'm starting to feel better, you'll see a little more activity around here.

University of Oregon e-records archivist position

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you "dynamic, creative, and user-oriented"?
  
• Are you interested in electronic records and records management or, better yet, have hands-on electronic records and records management experience?
• Do you have an American Library Association-accredited master's degree in library/information science with a concentration in archives or records management; a master's degree in archival administration; or a relevant master's degree and Certified Records Manager status?
• Do you want to work in an academic environment?
  
• Do you live -- or want to live -- in Eugene, Oregon?

If you answered "yes" to all of them, you might be in luck: the University of Oregon Libraries is seeking an electronic records archivist. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled, but priority consideration will be given to those submitted before 15 March 2010.

"So far, it's the best job in the country"

Last week, David Ferriero, the new Archivist of the United States, delivered his first State of the Archives address. I was particularly cheered by his continuing emphasis on the challenges posed by electronic records and electronic records management, which he likened to the problems faced by Robert Digges Wimberly Connor, the first Archivist of the United States, who fought valiantly to ensure that the nation's long-neglected records were properly housed:

. . . . It seems to me that we are at a similar crossroads in the history of the Archives in the challenges we face with the electronic records of the agencies we serve. Varieties of technology, platforms, software, practice, and lack of standards complicate the work of ingesting, preserving, and making available the records of the government. The work we have undertaken with Lockheed Martin is, of course, being watched closely by our funders, our stakeholders, and the rest of the archival community who is grappling with similar issues of born digital records. We have to get this right.

I also see the Electronic Records Archives initiative as a vehicle for reestablishing our oversight of the records management programs of each agency—working with agencies to establish protocols, practices, and annual audits.

I also like that Ferriero recognizes the larger archival community's interest in the Electronic Records Archives, and I hope that he continues predecessor Allen Weinstein's effort to bring the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration into closer alignment with archival professional organizations and other repositories throughout the nation.

If you want a sense of Ferriero's background and personality, check out the lengthy profile in today's Washington Post, which highlights his decades of work in libraries and includes video footage of him examining materials in the stacks of the Archives I facility in Washington, DC. The video's only 42 seconds long, but it reveals that the new Archivist has a puckish sense of humor:

Wanted: Grateful Dead archivist

It's really rare that archival job postings get much attention outside of the archival community, but the University of California-Santa Cruz's recent announcement that it was seeking an archivist to manage its Grateful Dead Archive has gotten more media coverage than the recent confirmation of David Ferriero as the 10th Archivist of the United States. The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and lots of other media outlets are all over the story.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Want Ads - Grateful Dead Archivist
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Last night, Jon Stewart (who needs some help with the pronunciation of "archivist") got into the act. As evidenced by the reactions posted to the Daily Show site itself and the Archives and Archivists listserv, reaction is mixed: some archivists think it's hilarious, while others are insulted by the offhand manner in which Stewart dismisses our profession. FWIW, I'm in the former camp. Yeah, the "alphanumerically?" bit is kind of snotty, but this is a man who, upon receiving an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, said: "As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better."

The job itself sounds like a great opportunity for a really high-energy archivist, who will work with approximately 600 linear feet of archival records, news clippings, artifacts, photographs, posters, audio and video recordings, and publications by and about the band and correspondence and art contributed over the years by their fans.

Why do I say "high-energy"? Well, the person who takes this job will be responsible, among other things, for:

• Developing overarching arrangement and description policies that conform to accepted national standards
• Developing digitization plans and digital access mechanisms
  
• Dealing with rights clearances and permission issues
• Creating and maintaining ties to the band's fan community and potential donors
• Providing reference services to academic researchers and members of the general public
• Curating exhibits and overseeing the loan of materials for exhibit purposes
• Planning conferences and other events
• Developing a volunteer/intern program that will tap into the fan community's knowledge and expertise
• Maintaining the Grateful Dead Archive's Web 2.0 presence
• Helping to set policies governing the operations of the Department of Special Collections and Archives, of which the Grateful Dead Archive is part
• Serving on appropriate University Library committees

As the Toronto Star points out, the successful candidate will likely have to perform another job function: "acting as the world's most chilled out bouncer." Ever since the surviving members of the Grateful Dead transferred the materials that comprise the archive to UC Santa Cruz last year, people have been traveling to Santa Cruz in hopes of getting access to the material. However, the Department of Special Collections and Archives -- quite rightly, I think -- is turning people away until they can establish some basic intellectual control over the collection.

What a great challenge -- and what a great opportunity. How many of us have large numbers of people clamoring for access to our holdings? Moreover, despite the stereotypes associated with Grateful Dead fandom, the band's following is drawn from all walks of life. I realize that the new Grateful Dead archivist and his/her colleagues in the Department of Special Collections and Archives are going to be struggling mightily to meet the immediate demands of researchers -- and, in all likelihood, to deal with some ongoing media attention -- but I hope they devote at least a little attention to educating the Grateful Dead Archive's users about the nature and value of archives in general.

The Department of Special Collections and Archives's other holdings, which include 16th-century Italian books, works of art by Lawrrence Ferlinghetti and others, mammoth photographic collections, materials relating to the history of feminism, and local history materials, would make a great teaching tool. Even if the users of the Grateful Dead Archive don't actively use any of the other holdings, I'm sure a lot of them would, with a little gentle nudging, grasp the value of preserving and providing access to these materials. Some of them could, with a little more nudging, become effective stakeholders and advocates. I, for one, would love to recruit a few advisory committee members, PAHR pushers, State Historical Records Advisory Board members, and other champions whose taste in casual wear runs toward tie-dyed t-shirts and Birkenstocks.

If you've got a master's degree in library science or archives management, are familiar with established professional standards and know how to put them into practice, supervisory experience, expert knowledge of modern American vernacular culture and music, first-rate organizational and communication skills, and lots and lots of energy, this job may be for you. You've got until December 4 to submit your application.

The Night Watch: a post-retirement project

After decades of research, retired Amsterdam municipal archivist Bas Dudok van Heel has conclusively identified the 18 men depicted in Rembrandt van Rijn's 1642 masterpiece, The Night Watch. The painting depicts members of a unit of the city's civic guard, which was responsible for helping to preserve order in times of unrest but also served as a social outlet for the city's prosperous male residents.

Dudok van Heel closely examined the painting, which includes a shield (added by another artist) listing the names of the men and contains a host of clues about the age and financial status of each subject. He then dove into the records of Amsterdam's municipal archives and looked for information that enabled him to sort out the men's identities. Owing to the detailed nature of the city's records, he was able not only to identify the men but also to determine their street addresses and, in some instances, occupations and artistic interests.

This research project took decades to complete, and a grievous mistake caused it to grind to a halt for a number of years:

Mr. Dudok van Heel . . . began the research in 1979 to aid the publication of a book, also called “The Night Watch.” The book’s author, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, told him to hang onto the research and suggested he publish it himself.

Mr. Dudok van Heel mistakenly threw out a manuscript based on the volumes of research in 1984 and, he said, he didn’t have the “energy and courage” to pick up the subject again for many years.

Dudok van Heel's research has been the subject of much media attention in the Netherlands, which is rightly proud of Rembrant and The Night Watch. Earlier this month, his findings were published in the newest edition of the Rijksmuseum Bulletin (subscription information). The Rijksmuseum has also posted to the Web an image of The Night Watch that identifies all of the men.

One of the things that drew me to archivy is that the profession encourages -- and is indeed dependent upon -- the accumulation of knowledge about records and about the context in which they were created. In our society, experience and the perspective that it lends are all too often devalued. Older workers are all too often dismissed as "past it" -- in some cases because of ageism and in others because doing so makes it easier to replace them with younger, less experienced, and thus cheaper employees. However, this attitude seems to be less prevalent within the world of archives: although the field is by no means immune to the cultural influences and economic pressures that can derail the careers of older archivists, it is also home to many, many people who start or complete ambitious projects in their 60's, 70's, and beyond.

Bas Dudok van Heel's post-retirement project may be unusual in that it has attracted global attention, but its scope and the depth of knowledge that it required certainly aren't. There are lots and lots of other retired archivists who are drawing upon -- and expanding -- their stores of knowledge by conducting research, teaching workshops and graduate-level courses, consulting, writing professional manuals, and doing all sorts of other interesting and significant things. I'm looking forward to following in their footsteps.

"Archivists Job Description" video

Wondering what we archivists do on the job? Need to explain your job to friends and relatives? This clip may help.



This video was put together by GadBall, a service that automatically distributes job-seekers' resumes to online job sites. In an effort to raise its online profile, GadBall has created almost 600 short "job description" videos and placed them on YouTube; I didn't know GadBall existed until I started searching YouTube a few minutes ago, so its strategy may be paying off.

Tired of working with records? If you've always thought about becoming a ship's captain, a motorcycle mechanic, or a dental lab technician, you might want to check out some of GadBall's other videos . . . .

"Digital archivists" and electronic stuff

Yesterday, the New York Times posted an article about "digital archivists" that has captured a lot of attention -- it quickly became one of the 10 most frequently e-mailed stories, and at the time of this writing, it still is.

The article, which is part of an ongoing series about emerging careers, isn't about the archival profession per se. Instead, it focuses on people who are responsible for preserving all kinds of electronic materials, among them digitized and born-digital records, publications, etc:

When the world entered the digital age, a great majority of human historical records did not immediately make the trip.

Literature, film, scientific journals, newspapers, court records, corporate documents and other material, accumulated over centuries, needed to be adapted for computer databases. Once there, it had to be arranged — along with newer, born-digital material — in a way that would let people find what they needed and keep finding it well into the future.

The people entrusted to find a place for this wealth of information are known as digital asset managers, or sometimes as digital archivists and digital preservation officers. Whatever they are called, demand for them is expanding.

The article goes on to profile Jacob Nadal, the preservation officer for the UCLA Libraries, who is responsible for ensuring that all types of materials in its collections receive proper care.
I was disappointed by the article's focus on the library world and by its conflation of "digital asset manager," "digital archivist," and "digital preservation officer." I was also convinved that there really isn't anything new here: many libraries have long had preservation officers, and the position (which has traditionally attracted archivists as well as librarians) is merely evolving in response to technological change.

At the same time, it gave me cause to reflect, once again, upon the manner in which the digital era is dissolving many of the traditional distinctions between librarianship and archivy. Archivists who work with electronic records or who are digitizing materials are focusing more of their attention at the item level -- if only because we're still figuring out how to automate various processing tasks. Librarians confronted with ever-increasing volumes of digital material are starting to think about describing materials at the aggregate level and exploring whether archival appraisal theory could help them focus their preservation efforts on their most significant holdings.

The belief that librarianship and archivy are converging is the fundamental premise of the Best Practices Exchange, which brings together state government digital librarians and electronic records archivists, and has been explored in a growing number of journal articles, conference sessions, and the like. All of us are trying to figure out what this convergence means for our professions and our institutions, and we likely won't have any definitive answers for a decade or two, so I can't really blame the Times for its lack of exactitude.

I can and do fault the Times for failing to explain precisely how one becomes a digital preservation officer, digital asset manager, etc.: nowhere does the article note that people who enter this field tend to hold master's degrees in library/information science. However, I am pleased that it emphatically asserts that a heavy-duty information technology background may actually limit one's prospects:

Familiarity with information technology is necessary, but it is possible to have too much tech know-how, said Victoria McCargar, a preservation consultant in Los Angeles and a lecturer at U.C.L.A. and San José State University.

"People with IT backgrounds tend to be wrong for the job,” she said. “They tend to focus on storage solutions: 'We’ll just throw another 10 terabytes on that server.'" A result, she said, can be "waxy buildup" — a lot of useless files that make it hard to find the good stuff.

Finally, I'm cheered by the article's closing emphasis upon the intangible rewards of working in the public sector, which pays substantially less than the private sector:

As much as it might help his bank balance, Mr. Nadal cannot envision leaving UCLA for a corporate job. He finds the challenge of taming a vast collection of information for a major academic institution too appealing.

"We belong to the people of California and hold our collections in trust for them and for future generations of students, scholars and members of the public," he said. "Public-sector institutions just strike me as far, far cooler. They have better collections, obviously, and they are innovative, connected and challenging in ways that seem more substantial to me."

I've met lots of corporate records and digital asset managers who relish the challenges of their work, and I've encountered a few digital librarians and electronic records archivists who languished miserably in the public sector. However, for the most part, I agree with Mr. Nadal: life in the public sector is, on the whole, more varied, more challenging, and more fun. I love working in a government archives, and I hope that archivists (and librarians) who are just now entering the profession think seriously about the distinctive challenges and opportunities they will find in the public sector.

"I was an archivist, yeah."

The Democracy Now Web site has just posted audio, video, and text versions of host Amy Goodman's 2004 interview with U. Utah Phillips, who died in May 2008. In it, Phillips looks back on his life as a rail-riding teen and young adult, soldier, peace activist, labor activist, anarchist, folksinger -- and archivist for the State of Utah.

Phillips became an archivist at some point in the 1960s, but was fired in 1968, when he ran for the U.S. Senate on the Peace and Freedom ticket. Although Phillips never again worked in a repository, his archival work left a lasting impression:

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were an archivist in Utah?

UTAH PHILLIPS: I was an archivist, yeah. I handled 75,000 cubic feet of public records. For an information junkie, that’s heaven. Yeah, I loved studying archival science, and I still have a library in my home that I curate, my own little research library of popular antiquities. And that’s where my mind lives when I’m at home.

In the interview, Phillips went on to denounce electronic records, which he viewed as dangerously unstable and vulnerable to alteration, and asserted that corporations had deluded libraries and archives into investing in digital technology. It's painfully obvious that Phillips hadn't engaged with the ever-growing body of archival literature relating to electronic records -- and that his politics led him to view digitization and electronic recordkeeping solely as conspiracies perpetrated by rapacious corporate interests -- but it's also plain that he continued to think about archival issues and to seek out archivists and librarians well after he gave up hope of finding another archival position.

To me, the most remarkable thing about Phillips's brief archival career is that he was hired in the first place: after high school, he joined the Army, moved from town to town, and then spent eight years at a Catholic Worker house in Salt Lake City. In 2009, his chances of getting archival job would be slim to none.

There's a running debate within the profession as regards the appropriate educational background for archivists. Should obtaining a master's degree be a prerequisite for obtaining a professional position? If so, should it be in history, library/information science, or archival science? What about dual-degree programs? Can on-the-job experience and immersion in the professional literature compensate for the lack of an advanced degree or an advanced degree in the "wrong" subject?

Even though I fall a few credit hours short of the mark, I believe that a dual M.A. in history and M.S. in library/information/archival science is the optimal credential. However, at times I wonder what we as a profession are losing as a result of our increasing emphasis upon having the "right" graduate degree(s). Will the profession eventually be dominated by people who have little experience of life beyond academe, and, if so, how will this situation affect our ability to document society in all of its complexity?

Having spent the better part of my twenties in a history Ph.D. program, I'm not exactly swimming against this particular tide. I nonetheless think that there should be a place in our profession for people with non-traditional backgrounds. I know lots of great archivists who have only one master's degree or bachelor's degrees and decades of work experience. There are also lots of people who become de facto archivists because they are passionate about the history of their communities or organizations or think that professional archivists have somehow fallen down on the job. We should reach out to these folks, some of whom instinctively "get" the basics of archival theory and want guidance re: preservation, etc.; doing so is one of the goals of the SAA roundtable that I currently co-chair.

Perhaps promoting archives as a second career would help to ensure that the profession remains grounded in the real world. I know plenty of people who went back to school and became archivists after doing other things: teacher, realtor, director of a non-profit organization, social worker, independent bookstore owner, seminarian, secretary, nurse, potter, actor, stay-at-home dad. All of them bring their past experiences to bear upon their current work (e.g., the former non-profit head knows the world of grants like the back of her hand).

Endowing a scholarship or two for prospective archivists entering the profession after at least a decade of doing something else might help, albeit in a small way, by supporting the education of a few archivists and raising the profile of the archives-as-second-career option. Maybe we could even figure out a way to pull a few wayfaring musician/agitators into the fold . . . .

NYLA: What Else Can You Do with a Library Degree?

I attended the New York Library Association conference on November 7 because a couple of colleagues and I did a morning session on preserving State government information found online (which I’ll blog about later). I stayed around for the afternoon sessions, and I’m glad I did.

“What Else Can You Do with a Library Degree?” brought together four librarians who now work outside of public and academic settings:

• Patti McCall is a librarian employed by a chemical and pharmaceutical research firm.
  
• Polly-Aida Farrington does technology training, project management, and Web site consulting.
  
• Jane Oliver is a grant writer.
• Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer was until recently the librarian/archivist at a museum.

After the four panelists introduced themselves, they took questions from the audience. The ensuing discussion was really wide-ranging, resists easy summary, and contained lots of good information and advice. In lieu of adding my own commentary (apart from noting that all of the advice the panelists dispensed was exceptionally good), I'll simply recap:

Grant-writing coursework: Joan Oliver recommended the Grantsmanship Center, which offers weeklong courses throughout the country, and the Foundation Center in New York City. She also indicated that anyone interested in the field should start reading the Chronicle of Philanthropy and look at GuideStar, an online service that allows you to see philanthropies’ financial data. (Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer noted that GuideStar is also a good resource for researching prospective non-profit employers.)

Making the transition to being self-employed: Polly Farrington took advantage of a retirement buyout and thus had a year’s salary and three years of benefits, but now purchases insurance through a small business association. Joan Oliver, who gets insurance via her local Chamber of Commerce, was laid off and realized that her experience administering grant projects gave her the insight needed to write grant applications. Polly Farrington initially saw contract work as something to do while she searched for a “real job,” but eventually realized that she was doing well on her own.

Marketing one’s services: When Joan Oliver began seeking contract work as a grants writer, she sent out letters outlining her grant-writing experience to entities throughout the country -- the only marketing work she’s ever gone. Polly Farrington, who sent out an initial message to friends and colleagues indicating that she was seeking short-term work, uses Flickr, Facebook, other social networking tools, and her blog to market herself and occasionally contacts people who are doing projects that interest her. However, both of them get work largely through word of mouth.

Whether academic librarians need a second master’s degree: Patti McCall felt that having a second master’s degree in history worked to her advantage when she was seeking an academic library job, but didn’t see it as a requirement. Polly Farrington, who had also worked in an academic library, did not have a second master’s degree. Both of them encouraged audience members to respond to job ads even if their qualifications didn’t perfectly match those outlined in the ads; not submitting a resume is the only sure-fire way not to get hired.

Learning the technical jargon needed to work in a special library: Patti McCall indicated that most of the reference requests she received actually concerned medical issues (her employer does a substantial amount of pharmaceutical research) but learned chemical terminology by asking chemists, attending the chemistry librarians’ meeting at the Special Libraries Association meeting, and attending chemists’ professional meetings.

Whether it’s better for new graduates to keep pursuing unpaid internships or take less-than-desirable (or non-library) first jobs: Patti McCall indicated that graduates who can continue working as an intern ought to do so, but most people need to eat. Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer said that it ought to be possible to work at a job that pays the bills and volunteer or intern in one’s spare time. McCall and Polly Farrington also emphasized the importance of developing a functionally oriented resume that highlights how skills learned in one field (e.g., customer-service skills developed in the retail world) apply to library work; a functionally oriented resume can also smooth the transition from librarianship to another field.

Finding volunteer opportunities: In response to audience members who had been rebuffed when they sought volunteer work, Patti McCall stated that working with volunteers does take staff time, that other opportunities are out there, and that joining a professional association would probably be helpful. Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer noted that at most libraries, someone is in charge of volunteers and interns and that identifying this person might take a little effort. Polly Farrington suggested looking outside of libraries; it might be possible to do library-type work for, e.g., a theater company -- and to get good experience and a good reference as a result of this work. A member of the audience commented that he was initially rebuffed by a non-profit when he sought to do volunteer work, but the non-profit was willing to have him do a for-credit independent study; he ended up paying the organization to work for it, but got good experience doing it.

Getting an archival position: In response to a question from a student who specialized in archives and records management while in graduate school but couldn’t find a professional archival position, Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer stated that there are relatively few archival jobs (and even fewer curatorial positions) and that it might not be possible to secure one’s dream job right out of school. Moving into archives will likely require a substantial amount of practical experience, which can be obtained by volunteering, interning, taking archival continuing education courses, and joining professional associations.

Records management and competitive research: Patti McCall, whose own graduate coursework focused on archives and records management and worked as a municipal government records manager before taking an academic library position, noted that RM and competitive research are also open to librarians (who can learn more about RM by taking New York State Archives workshops). She is currently responsible for doing RM work at her firm because she made it a point to emphasize its legal and practical importance to her employer, and her RM activities will ultimately feed into her employer’s development of an enterprise content management system. She also does some competitive research (i.e., examines the status and activities of her employers’ competitors), which is is frequently done by librarians. She’s adding value to the firm, and getting to know more people within it.

Joining professional associations: all four panelists repeatedly emphasized the importance of becoming active in professional associations, which provide opportunities for networking, taking continuing education courses, and moving into new areas of specialization. Patti McCall emphasized that, in her experience, new graduates who were actively involved in professional associations were much more likely to find jobs than those who weren’t. Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer noted that her involvement in archival professional groups helped her to make the transition from being a public librarian and a children’s librarian to being an archivist and special librarian and can help one avoid being "pigeonholed" within the library/archival world.

Blogs and e-portfolios: Polly Farrington stated that anyone seeking a job that requires maintenance of a blog or other social networking resource must be able to demonstrate that s/he has the skills needed to do so; maintaining a blog, etc., is a must. Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer maintains a password-protected Word Press blog with an e-portfolio that contains sample work and scanned letters of recommendation, and includes the URL and password when writing thank-you notes following job interviews.

Web development courses: Polly Farrington suggested taking NYLA workshops and joining the International Webmasters Association/HTML Writers Guild, which offers courses that will develop key skills and offers discounts to its members.

Library Science courses: when asked which courses they could take if they were currently enrolled in an MLS/MIS program, the panelists mentioned courses in government documents, management, research, any kind of computer-related topic, and metadata.