The Future of the Archival Professional

Lots of people are talking about the future of archives, mostly from the point of view of materials and access, and these are indeed very pressing issues. Reinventing the mission of the archives and finding ways to mediate and educate the user will certainly be the greatest challenge in the coming years.  But occasionally scholars are diving into the waters of defining archivists themselves. Richard Cox wrote a bit about what he terms the “generational divide” that archivists are facing. Cox postulated in 2011 that since many managerial archivists today did not grow up in a multiverse of information technologies, while their subordinates are “first-generation digital natives”, this is going to lead to a lot of friction about future paths, if it has not already. New careers and job titles are already flowing out of this new reality: digital archivist, data curator, instructional archivist. Seamus Ross, involved in digital humanities at the University of Toronto, has said that one of the most serious problems in archives today is the lack of collaboration between archivists and IT workers.  The gaps between those two groups are still large, although archivist like to think that they're closing it. Perhaps the "native digital" generation will help close that further, or maybe it's up to who will follow us to close it.

Lawrence Serewicz had an interesting postulation on how the materials we preserve will change: he claimed that in just 20 years, we may be faced with digital collections surpassing paper collections. I don't think he's being too hasty; if my own collections are any indication, some institutions are already at that point. Kate Theimer recently wrote that she envisions the entire mission of archives changing. To put it bluntly, I think this is amazing and I love her idea of explicitly calling archives a place that adds value to people's lives. For me, it ties in with how I want my institution's archives to be: a place where the community comes to find out about itself.

And these changes will necessitate a change in how archivists are created, and how archivists perceive themselves, and how archivists educate themselves and interact with their peers in IT and libraries and museums. As the archivist changes, so too does the archivist’s goals and ambitions. Diversity of experience leads to new definitions of what’s important to collect, the best means of collecting and preserving, and the best way to provide access. The whole plane is shifting under our feet. Embracing these changes is the only way to stay standing. I think that figuring out ways to incorporate the variety of skill sets/experiences of current or new archivists, beyond just their archival training, is a good way to start taking action. As Richard Cox said, we are dealing with generational issues and professional status issues, not just issues of products or process. This would be a small step, to be sure, but if we don't start with what we already have--our own diversity of experience and knowledge of the world, and personal feelings about how we interact with technology and the historical record--I'm not sure that we'll get very far with the other areas, either.

Archival stewardship

One of the things I'm thinking about right now is how we're going to appraise and accession new materials for the archive. Based on the literature I'm reading right now, and the population we're serving, and the constraints on my time, it seems like the traditional archivist-driven models aren't going to work very well here. So instead I'm working on the idea of participatory/crowdsourcing archives, creating flexible delivery options, and providing a metric ton of education to help enable our community to create its own historical record. It's some of the most exciting work I've ever done in archives. Honestly, I'm so excited to get to work every day, because I know that I can build something here that I wouldn't be allowed to build in other places (due to local practice/tradition/inertia/what-have-you).
I was remarking to my boss that I've seen a lot of proposed projects (in the literature) that never got off the ground. In our case, though, it HAS to get off the ground, because there is no plan B. Plan A is the only plan--the old models of an archivist going around telling everyone what's historically useful is simply not going to work here, and won't give us the kind of the archives that I know we need. Since this university's archive will be for the community, and used by the community, we need to build something that comes from the community as well. We need to overlap groups, get the materials from places that information would not normally come from, and because of space considerations, we need the materials to be high-information sources. We cannot afford to take in just anything. Which, again, leads to a vital need for education--our potential donors need to know what the archives can use, and what it cannot use. And then they need to be able to tell us what they're giving us and why they believe it's important.
I know that this project, this idea, is a long-term goal, like 10 years or more in the building. But if we can create a community that has some stake in the success of the archives, and we can position the archivist and archives in a position of stewardship, rather than gatekeeping, I think that it would go a long way towards creating a really useful historical perspective on this place.

More bad poetry

This is the second haiku I've written about cataloging/metadata, but it was for a report, so I feel like I get a free pass. I apologize in advance.

"A haiku about interdepartmental collaboration", by Me

Building best practice
is communicating well
with cataloging

Creating the historical record?

There's an interesting truth about my work: I am literally deciding right now what people will believe about this university in the future. There are two distinct stories that could be told: one is that this is the lesser institution to the greater parent university. The one that is not as rigorous, not as prestigious, not as important (and that's not an untrue story, if you measure success in the usual way). The other story is that this is an institution that educates the students who aren't welcome elsewhere. The night student, the minority, the single parent, the non-cis. This second story is a difficult one to flesh out, because it necessitates a shift in thinking about what an important institution is, what achievement is, and what student success looks like. To keep a history that celebrates the non-conformers who make their own way within traditional structures...this is hard. It's worth it, but it's hard. Just finding the historical record for supporting such a narrative is hard enough. Then we must also PROVE its authenticity, because it will never be simply *given* legitimacy. 

I think this is the kind of work that I will find most meaningful as I continue this job. Finding those varied stories and making sure they are preserved. Showing that success can be different than the norm, and still be considered success. I'm not sure that archivists think of themselves as creating institutional identities by their choices, but in this case I think that it's inevitable, whether I were to consciously choose it or not.