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Re: Certification



I decided the sleep on this matter and think about it some before responding with some background for new members of the list and some perceptions, opinions, and information gathered over the nearly four decades I have been an archivist and a member of SAA and a CA since the very beginning and a past officer of ACA.

A goodly number of years ago, SAA did consider at some length a three pronged approach of certifying individual archivists, certifying archival education programs, and evaluating or certifying individual archival institutions.  

The task force and the committee on archives evaluation existed for many years during which it developed a complicated and time consuming evaluation process that was somewhat of a mini evaluation when compared to the evaluations most educational institutions are subjected to by the several regional associations such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities.  While the intent was commendable, the process was so cumbersome and time consuming that about the only institutions willing to undergo it were the few who got money from the grant that SAA got to test the program.

Now for the education programs.  It has always been my perception that archival education has long consisted of a number of kingdoms and fiefdoms none of which is willing to be told what to do or how it is to be done.  Each one had its own agenda and felt that it was the only one who knew how to do things right.  The committee on archival education was able to produce and distribute some guidelines and, as I recall, a suggested curriculum.  During all of this apparent infighting, the library schools and history departments decided to provide archival education programs frequently without any archivists involved in the teaching.  Nevertheless, since the institutions with which they were associated were accredited their programs seemed to outsiders to be more prestigious to the programs provided by professional archivists.  It did appear to this outsider that the education programs provided by professional archivists were unwilling to have any group evaluate their programs.  Remember these are my impressions from someone who has not been involved in archival education in any way other than as someone who attend a number of workshops over the years.

Because the above two options were really not achievable by SAA, the only option was to offer certification of individual archivists.  SAA followed the practice of most professions in starting a certification program when SAA invited individual archivists to petition to be certified.   It then set about devising a test with the assistance of a professional testing service.  Most people were greatly surprised when over 700 archivists petitioned to be certified.  At that point the Academy of Certified Archivists was established, and it has continued to offer certification by examination and certification maintenance by petition or testing.  There is a committee of ACA that continues to work with a professional testing service and regularly develops new questions and drops old questions.  One of the most important things ACA has accomplished was the creation of the Archival Domains with many knowledge statements in each domain.  All questions developed address one or more knowledge statements in the various domains.

There are undoubtedly a number of reasons for people to oppose certification.  Perhaps first some individuals see it as a threat.  Secondly several archival educators were attempting to develop programs that would lead to a Master of Archival Education and saw certification as the threat to getting those programs approved.  Other people, however, see certification as a means of verifying that the archival education programs produce knowledgeable archivists.  At least one of those early education programs was abolished when many of its students were unable to pass the exam.  Perhaps the major reason for people to oppose certification is that a large percentage of archivists are of the type person who resists any change in what is done or how it is done.  They tend to believe that the way grandfather did something is still a good way to do it.

I believe strongly that many of those more than 700 archivists who petitioned for certification did so because they believed it was the right way for the profession to go.  Unfortunately a good percentage of them must have thought that certification would bring about immediate changes and improvements, and when that did not happen they decided not to recertify.  Nevertheless, many new people have seen the potential benefits of certification so that the membership of ACA is now back at or above its original numbers.  In recent years increasing numbers of individuals who have just completed their education or will finish it soon are taking the exam in order to become provisionally certified.  They become fully certified when they have completed one year of full time employment.  This past August over 80 people took the exam.  Based upon past experience with the exam, probably more than 70 of them will pass the exam.  That would mean a 10% increase in the number of certified archivists.  I firmly believe that these new archivists are making permanent commitments to certification rather than the temporary commitments made by many of those who were certified by petition in 1989.  One of the major factors in so many new archivists taking the exam has been the dedicated work of some of the archival educators in encouraging their students to take the exam so that their archival education program can be verified as teaching the students what they need to know to become good professional archivists.     

I am fully aware that in some professions newly certified individuals get high raises when individuals become certified professionals.  I never expected to get a raise when I was certified and I was not disappointed in that expectation.  I did, however, think back then and still think today that certification of individual archivists was the way for the profession to go.  I believe that there may eventually become a day when the archival profession will be directly involved in some the evaluations done by the regional accreditation teams when the institution being evaluated has an archival education program in either the library education program or in some other academic department.  

I think I will close with that.  Some of my colleagues of long standing chide me for my three page postings, but sometimes it seems to me that the things written above need to be said and said again and again as new archivists enter the profession.


Dr. Charles R. Schultz, CA, SAA Fellow
Clements 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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