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Re: dilemma



Carin,
If you have any intentions to work in an archives, I would advise you to take the required classes in archives management.  Nearly all job announcements for archival positions now require specialization in archives administration.  In the few instances in which that is not required you would probably be working in a situation in which the concept of archives is not understood at all.

If you might be working in an academic institution not as an archivist it would also be good to have the classes in archives management.  That would make you one of the few librarians who really understood archives.  

Having the archives management courses would also make you eligible for jobs in the world of business or corporate archives.  Those are usually among the top paying positions.  At least that is what I hear from friends who are in such positions.  Business or corporate archivists are often much more appreciated and understood by their superiors than are the rest of us who work in historical societies, university libraries, or government archives at any level from local to national.  

There are many reasons for becoming an archivist.  Before I get into them, let me say at the outset that the vast majority of the public does not have the faintest idea of what an archivist is or does.  They often think it would be great to all those interesting things with all those wonderful original documents, but they do not really understand what those things are or that a very large percentage of those original documents are not really wonderful in the way that the U. S. Constitution, letters from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and such other national documents are wonderful.  Try asking those who live around you if they know what an archives is or what an archivist does, and I'll bet less than 10% really know.  Some of us became archivists virtually by accident or by fate.  We got jobs in an archives while pursuing graduate studies and felt comfortable there and stayed in the business.  Some people started out as librarians and were assigned to be the archivist when an archives position was created at their institution.  In more recent years as library education programs and other academic disciplines began to offer formal courses in archival administration more and more students are taking those courses.  At about the same time the Academy of Certified Archivists was formed to certify the quality of archivists.
I firmly believe that both of these movements will gradually enhance the archival profession over time.  Until that happens fully, should you decide to become an archivist you may well find yourself working more or less anonymously in a basement or some other far corner of a library or historical society or a government building where you may well go unappreciated and misunderstood unless you become truly proactive to promote yourself, your position, and your collections to the appropriate administrators and the public.  This "unless" is something that the archival profession has not done as well as we might have in the past.  It has been a take off of the phrase "if you build it they will come."   Archivists have tended to feel that if they collect wornderful "stuff" from the national, regional, state, or local levels people will naturallycome to use it.  That cannot happen if "they" are not made aware that the "stuff" is available.  

Well, I may already have reached the three pages I am often accused of sending in response to inquiries so I think I will stop here even if I may not have addressed all the issues you raised.
Before I close I will say that I think most of us who have been in the archives world for a while say in it because we like it despite, or perhaps because of, all the challenges.



Charles R. Schultz, CA
Professor and Clements Archivist
Cushing Library
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-5000
c-schultz@tamu.edu
979-862-1555
FAX 979-845-1441

State-of-the-art automation will never beat the wastebasket 
when it comes to speeding up efficiency in the office.
Ann Landers Gem of the Day, July 27, 1994

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