[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Education for Future Reference Archivist



        I think Bill has outlined the personal characteristics that are
crucial for success in any public service job, but providing good
reference service also requires a broad set of skills and perspectives.

        For instance I think it's important to make a distinction between
providing the patron the answer and helping the patron find the answer. As
one who has done archival reference work in a university setting, I found
I spent a lot time teaching students to become fairly self-sufficient with
finding aids of many varieties. Out-of-towners in search of their roots
got less in the way of archival research skills education, but they too
always got some, as I explained why one source would be better than
another and how to use it efficiently. Lawyers and the like usually knew
the sources they needed and how to use them, they just needed to know
where they were. Only in the case of a "ready reference" phone call or
email request do I see it as my job to look up the answer and just provide
it.

        We know from library research that people ask for what they think
they can get, which is to say they usually come in with very limited
expectations. Part of the job of the person at the desk is to find out
what the patron needs -- and that may not be what they come in asking for.
Getting them what they need involves finding out their end goal(s) and and
their constraints and working with both in mind.  The student just
starting thesis research has very different needs -- both in sources and
"how to use the archives" education -- from the student with a 10 page
paper due day after tomorrow, and both of them differ greatly from the new
home owner looking for some history of their house.

        The perspective you bring to the job will depend, to some degree,
on the culture of the shop you work in, but you will get them most
concentrated exposure to the literature and discussion on the skills
themselves in classes on how to do reference work in a library science or
archives science program. It's my experience that reference desk work in a
variety of libraries (I've worked in libraries in public schools, academic
medical hospitals and schools, house museums, state archives, and academic
archives) differs little in its fundamental elements. The materials you
work with vary, the nature of the questions and the background of the
patrons vary, but the essential work -- getting the patron to the
resources they need -- doesn't.

Further, getting a degree in either of those areas provides you
credentials to take your career in many different directions. If someone
had told me when I was getting my MLS some years ago that I would be
looking back over, and forward to, my career path, my jaw would have
dropped. I did not know then what I could/would do with the degree, but I
now know what I could _not_ have done without it -- most I have done. As
much as it is easy and fashionable to skoff at degrees and credentials,
the hard reality is that if you can't produce a degree when it's called
for, you may be blocked out of something you'd have been terrific at with
or without the degree.

        Get the experience, but get the degree, too.

Elizabeth H. Dow, Ph.D.   edow@zoo.uvm.edu
Special Collections
Bailey/Howe Library
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT  05405
802 656-2631

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>