I thought this was a very interesting article, but I thought that the two
main issues that it brought up have little to do with archives, but more to do
with academic librarianship.
The first issue is the whole faculty/staff difference. I know in most
academic libraries, there are some librarians who have faculty status and some
who have various kinds of staff classification. It seems to have very little to
do with the work involved in one's job, the amount of skills one has, or one's
education level. Many of these institutions pay lip service to the idea that
there is no difference in status; those of us who work in these situations know
very well that there is a big difference in the amount of respect and support
given to the individual. In fact, if you're a staff member and doing a lot of
"professional" activities, you'll encounter a lot of resentment, which is
probably what Ms. Young was encountering here. (Hey, when the stakes get low,
the fight gets dirty.) The theory seems to be that giving librarians faculty
status will make them equally respected to faculty members on campus and will
foster an atmosphere of research and scholarship. Instead, you have the faculty
librarians spending work time churning out often shoddy research when they could
be actually creating pathfinders, cleaning up databases, or assisting patrons.
And you have the caste-climate like Ms. Young experienced, where the
professional staff librarians work all day and the faculty librarians sit in
their offices reading novels. (A strong statement, but I assure you this is
based on my experience in one, however atypical, institution.)
The second issue is the whole "librarians who want to be faculty members"
issue. There are lots of these people working in libraries, especially in
Special Collections departments, where there remain a cadre of individuals who
think that a PhD in history is sufficient training to be an archivist (none of
us believe that, of course). This may sound crazy, but I don't want to be a
faculty member. The elements of my current job that are driving me out, the
nasty politics and pettiness are, often more intense in faculty positions; I
also don't like teaching; I don't like writing articles when I have nothing to
say. I think that being an archivist or a librarian is an honest, often
interesting, and usually useful living. I'm collecting and providing access to
historical materials and researchers will bless my name for generations to come!
Well, okay, probably not, but I still feel useful. I like it, and I'm doing it
as a stopgap until I get a teaching job.
I thought that Chris Flynn's comments on using this article as a wake up
call to our own situations was an excellent one. How many of us are creating
this situation in our own places of work? As for how Ms. Young became an
archivist, who cares? We all have come to our profession through meandering
roads, often gaining useful skills and experience along the way. It sounds like
from her activities that she's an excellent archivist, but she probably won't
stay in the profession because of the bullshit she's having to put up with
within the academic library system. Is that happening in one of our
institutions?
Ms. Georgen Gilliam
Utah State University Libraries geogil@ngw.lib.usu.edu What time is it? http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html |