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?