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Re: Archival Consultant fees-She does not have a great deal of archival training



Thanks to Daniel Sokolow for defending the "poor saps" stuck with
"/archivist" at the end of their title.  While I myself have known at
least a couple of "archival consultants" who didn't know beans about
archives, I say, if you are not a part of the solution, you are part of
the problem!

In law librarianship, it is becoming more and more frequent to find law
librarians being assigned the additional task of taking care of the law
school's archives, or providing access to a famous alum's papers.  Law
School Deans aren't dumb-they have finally realized the value in
maintaining an organized collection of the school's archives, or in
accepting a prominent alum's papers.  While in many instances it would
make more sense to hand the materials over to the parent school's
archives, where trained professionals can take care of them and provide
access, increasingly many law school Deans don't want to do this.  The
Deans don't want to lose control over a significant resource, and a
source of bragging rights-pure human nature.  So they assign the duty of
maintaining the archives or manuscript collection to one of the law
librarians at their school.  Good law librarians are highly trained
professionals (just not in archives).  I am lucky enough to be
professionally trained in archives, and learning on the job to be a law
librarian! (and I don't read about them b#$%ing about me!)

I decided to do something about the problem of law librarians
administering archives and manuscripts.  At the Annual Meeting of the
American Association of Law Libraries, in July, 2001, I am presently a
program session on the basics of legal archives and manuscripts entitled
"Legal Historical Materials in a Nutshell: An Introduction to Legal
Archives and Manuscripts."  Mike Widener of UTexas Tarlton Law Library
will moderate.  William Maher from UIllinois will discuss the basics of
archives and manuscripts, and I will discuss the peculiarities of legal
archives and manuscripts.  Professor Paul Finkelman of the University of
Tulsa Law School will discuss attorney-client confidentiality and
privacy, and how they impact doing research in legal collections.

I would love to hear from anyone who administers mainly collections of
legal materials, and their "war stories," or suggestions as to what to
say concerning the peculiarities (or similarities) of legal archives and
manuscripts to a general audience.
Mark

Mark Lambert
Special Collections and Government Documents Librarian
South Texas College of Law Library
Houston, TX

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