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sigh, the job market



The conversation about the "job market" started out with Jill Jackson's
statement and questions: "Because we are hiring, I have been watching job
announcements a lot lately. I have noticed that quite a few archivist
positions (of various types) keep getting re-advertised or the searches
extended.  This is both exciting and unsettling depending whether one is
a prospective employer or employee.  I am wondering whether there is a
skill deficit, or whether more jobs than applicants.  Thoughts?  Are
there fewer students going into archives at the library schools?  And is
it just my imagination, or are grant funded positions more plentiful and
harder to fill these days?"

In typical fashion for this list, a posting about hiring and jobs started
a string of messages in which individuals complained about salaries,
etc.  Steve Fisher attributes the problems with a "booming economy" and
also wonders if "We are also asking employees to do more with technology.
The skills required are increasing, while perhaps the salaries are not
keeping up accordingly."  Michael Miller adds, "Jobs in other fields,
both private (corporate) and public, requiring similar skills (markup
languages, db management, etc.) easily pay much more than beginning
library/archive jobs (and often do not require a Masters, either)."
Jacquelyn Saturley  wonders, "The pay that is being offered across the
board is so absurdly low. I can think of no other profession, except
librarians, that have such an extremely low pay scale. It is absolutely
ludicrious."  Ronnie Cunningham laments, "I'm earning under $12 an hour
for what was recently referred to as my 'professional expertise'.  But
that was when I was being volunteered as a participant in a program to
help other organizations.  I must take on two and sometimes three jobs,
even though this one is full time, in order to pay the mortgage *and*
eat."  JHF bluntly states, "The typical advertisement for an archives
position calls for an individual who has at least one master's degree,
and usually two, would prefer someone with three to five years
experience, and is willing to to work for less than an assistant manager
at McDonalds.   Perhaps jobs would be snapped up more quickly if there
were real pay and benefits attached to them.  As it is,
archivists are usually offered less than librarians...."

I would add to this discussion that there are major problems with how the
ARCHIVAL field is defining and setting standards for entry-level
positions, but there are NOT problems with how society and scholars and
others are viewing the importance of RECORDS.  For the problem with the
remarkably static characteristics of entry-level positions over a twenty
year people, I refer people to my article, "Employing Records
Professionals in the Information Age: A Research Study," Information
Management Journal 34 (January 2000): 18-33.  For the growing importance
of records, one needs only to read the newspapers every day, look at the
growing scholarship on records such as Donna Merwick's Death of a Notary
(Cornell University Press, 1999), and the constant debates in Congress
regarding records classification, secrecy, intellectual property.

My two cents?  There are many, many excellent and well-paying jobs out
there for RECORDS professionals, but they may not always be in archival
programs and institutions.  Moreover, if the profession looks to
traditionally low paying positions in historical societies and other
cultural organizations, it will always be whining about a lack of
appreciation.  People who take those positions make a career choice often
having to do with other interests and issues than salary compensation.
Individuals who want to make a career in records work need to obtain the
appopriate education, commit to life-long learning to retain skills and
knowledge, and be open to critically important records positions in
government, corporations, universities, and other organizations.

Food for thought?  Try reading the Merwick book, following the life of
Adriaen Janse van Ilpendam, a Dutch emigre to New Netherland, whose
career as a notary leads him to an uncertain existence after the English
take over and their language replaces Dutch as the official language.  In
fact, the notary takes his own life in 1686, as his place in society has
all but evaporated.  The historian provides many insights into the
importance and nature of records in the seventeenth century.  In addition
to describing the work of a notary and the sources for a notary's
authority, Merwick discusses how the notary's papers form a sort of
archives and uses considerable iconographic evidence to reveal how a
notary's activities supported both government and private life in the
colonial era.  Merwick relates an ironic tale as writing and
recordkeeping become more important in the growing colonial settlement
but the Dutch notary's form of records service fades in significance.
One of the beauties of this study is the historian's remarkable indepth
research into existing documentation in both this country and Europe to
recreate the struggles of the notary (as recounted in the detailed "notes
and reflections" section at the conclusion of the study).  For example,
Merwick reveals the notary's struggles with English through the
misspellings and other problems with the documents at the end of the
notary's life.  Merwick's book is a moving story, one with poignancy for
today's recordkeeper struggling with technology, technique, authority,
and status. Merwick's book, as the subtitle suggests, is intended to be
an exploration into cultural change.  The last paragraph of the study
suggests that Janse had to "read the performances of each cultural system
in such a way as to find enough meaning to survive, if not to prosper or
acquiesce with equanimity.  While others could do it, he could not" (p.
186).  While Merwick wonders about such struggles of three centuries ago,
there is much to ponder for the modern recordkeeper and his or her own
cultural transistions.

More food for thought?  Read John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social
Life of Information (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), a book
that will be widely-read by corporate and government leaders both because
of its accessibility in explaining complex issues but also because it
deals with matters increasingly facing organizations today.  The book
commences with a discussion of the limits of information, the problems
with the over-abundance of information, and the standard, overly
enthusiastic predictions about information technology and the value of
information. Brown and Duguid emphasize that we need to understand social
networks using information in order to comprehend how information might
or should be used.  The book contains a highly readable discussion of
knowledge management as well as a re-worked version of "The Social Life
of Documents," First Monday 1 (1996) available at
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue1/documents/index.html, an essay
all records professionals will want to read.  In their book, in this
re-worked essay, they write, "Documents not only serve to make
information but also to warrant it - to give it validity" (p. 187) and
"So documents do not merely carry information, they help make it,
structure it, and validate it" (p. 189).  Documents (including archives
and records) structure society.

So, Jill, no there are not fewer archives students these days.  BUT they
may be going into other RECORDS jobs with greater potential for
influence, more compensation, and where they might even be more appreciated.


Richard J. Cox
Associate Professor
Department of Library and Information Sciences
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Voice:  412-624-3245
FAX:    412-648-7001
e-mail: rjc@lis.pitt.edu
homepage: http://www.lis.pitt.edu/~rjc

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