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Come on over to the dark side was Re: Another Archive



On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:34:05 -0600, Carole Prietto
<Carole-Prietto@LIBRARY.WUSTL.EDU> wrote:


>You'd have to do a lot of talking to convince me that a job like this
>would pay better than the university job I now have. I've never studied
>this, but I wonder how many of these county courthouse jobs are
>either (a) professional work done for a clerk's salary (b) temporary,
>grant funded jobs (c) done under the auspices of a state local
>records program, where you're in the field a lot and never
>spend much time working in one place.
Actually they pay quite well, are generally civil service (IIRC), have a
dotted line relationship to the state library/archives system and in most
cases are funded because they records are being used by the public. In Texas
(and Paul can correct me here) each county has a fee that is collected when
records are recorded that fee is used for preservation microfilming.

>My experience is that business recruiting for corporate archivists shy
>away from academic archivists, because "the culture is different and you
>wouldn't fit in". Corporations looking for archives are not looking for a
>clerk, they are looking for an archivist with experience in the corporate
>environment.


Actually the corporate environment is looking for folks who can respond
quickly, understand finance, strategic planning, and a host of other things.
 Actually archivists have many transferable skills into the corporate
environment. I started out as an archivist and realized that after 4 years I
wanted to be in the corporate environment where I could have a direct role
in proselytizing the need to preserve historic business records aka
corporate archives.

I took some RM courses and have been moving onward and upward since then.
Each of us must decide for ourselves as to what sort of career path we want
to take. If you are happy in academia, a publicly supported archives or
whatever that is great. But don't complain about the low pay, lack of
recognition etc. All that Paul Scott and I are saying is that there are
other options available to those with archival training. Each job position
is more than just salary and  benefits, but if you are continually
complaining about low pay then don't slap someone for telling you about
another opportunity.

So if you are an archivist in training or an archivist looking for another
position consider the various options available and then decide what is best
for you.

Personally I think there are more archivists who have become records
managers then vice versa.

So come on over and join the dark side. I think you will enjoy it.

Peter Kurilecz
pakurilecz@aol.com

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