Sorry but I can't resist throwing this little lot in...
I was intending to raise this problem at the next SRG meeting but all the
discussion on the need for proper publicity for who we are and what we do
has rather pre-empted any such need, I suspect. The problem is also clearly
of relevance to us all, not just SRG members. The gist of what I have
already unofficially discussed with the SRG is as follows...
In the past 3 weeks alone I've been approached (as I'm sure have many of you
over the years) for help by 2 individuals who have been appointed as
"archivists" to sort, weed, list, classify and find a repository for, the
entire surviving archives of two quite differing organisations. Neither of
the persons appointed has any professional archival qualifications or
experience (though I am sure they have practical records management
experience). In addition, I've been advised that two quite different
organisations have recently employed very expensive consultants to advise
them as to what to do with their records. You will be interested to hear
that one of the consulting firms advised passing the job to the
organisation's reference library. Yes.
With deepest apologies to all those non-archivists out there doing amazing
archival work against all odds in the service of their organisations, and I
know there are many of you doing a brilliant job, how on earth do we
persuade said organisations to employ archivists (apologies to people who
have worked in records management, but I'm tired of explaining ISAD(G) etc
and what HMC does each time one of you asks for help)? Should we be
advertising in business journals that we are cheaper and better than
consultancy firms (again, with apologies to those firms which do employ
archivists to carry out this work - do they exist? if so, I would like to
hear from them)? And should we be pleading - here openeth the can of worms
- with librarians to tell their firms if they are asked to do this sort of
work from scratch that they can't do the job as well as archivists?
Clare Cowling
RCOG and IALS Archivist
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