This is not really the LA's problem. It accepts ads and charges for them in the same way as the SOA does in its Career Opportunities bulletin. Perhaps the SOA might come to some sort of arrangement with them but there are even more librarians out there looking for jobs and the LA represents their interests.
There is nothing new in this phenomenon. Institutions like the NMM have always recruited people to look after the manuscripts collections which they hold on the basis of subject matter specialisation rather than any specific professional qualification and this tends to perpetuate itself. It is also difficult to convince an organisation that already employs a librarian that it should take on the additional "burden" of employing an archivist if the amount of work is insufficient to justify a full-time post. The punters do not always see the difference as clearly as the professionals.
This was also a problem in business (and remains so in some places) where faithful retainers were appointed because they knew about the company or academics were taken on because the principal aim of the archive programme was to produce a company history. The cause of the profession was not helped by the determinedly mediaeval/public sector aura with which it surrounded itself and which was reinforced by the way in which archivists were trained.
Perhaps it's a consequence of the SOA's tendency to contemplate its organisational navel that this image persists and that we find ourselves as a profession being taken increasingly down the heritage route.
On the other hand, as a consulting practice we work hard to persuade our clients that when they recruit to the posts which frequently grow out of the initial work that we do, they should look for qualified archivists and/or records managers. These are frequently challenging, well paid, jobs with enormous potential though not necessarily in "traditional" organisations. The take up, however, is worryingly low. My experience as an archivist in business was similar. Although we were able to recruit excellent people, the field was narrower than we would have liked. Perhaps our professional education and CPD still produces people who define their profession and their professionalism too narrowly?
Peter Emmerson
Peter Emmerson
Director,
Emmerson Consulting Limited
Phone 01582 769842
Fax 01582 761740
E-mail [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Clare Cowling [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 May 2000 09:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: National Maritime Museum
Would anyone from the Library Association care to comment on their apparent
willingness to advertise archival posts instead of informing the proposed
advertiser that s/he should instead contact the SOA? (Apologies if that is
what they do already). And what is the SOA doing about this? As we know,
it's happening all the time (I've already raised this point a few times on
mailbase and have recently been approached for help by yet another
non-archivist (with some library experience; found the job via the LA)
wanting advice on how to appraise and list a company's archives). Not a lot
of point training umpteen archivists and insisting on continuing education
if there are no reasonably paid jobs and/or if what do exist are are going
to unqualified persons.
Clare Cowling
-----Original Message-----
From: Williams Gareth Haulfryn ADH/ECL
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 May 2000 17:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: National Maritime Museum
Have people seen the Nat. Maritime Museum vacancy in the Library
Assoc.Appointments Circular for a 'Manuscripts Manager' by which presumably
they mean archivist? Decent enough salary (£19000) until you read that they
list line management, responsibility for the care and preservation of the
manuscripts collection, and management of the online cataloguing
project...acquisition and management of current collections, etc etc.
Qualifications: experience or a qualification in the field of manuscript or
archive resources.... Educated to at least A level.
Am I the only one to find this description of archive work coupled with a
complete lack of knowledge of the title and availability of the right
professional qualifications, let alone perception of the required level of
education, totally depressing coming from a national institution that ought
to know better?
Our noteworthy but much much smaller maritime records collection in Gwynedd
would never be entrusted to someone whose level of qualification was
sub-graduate and just with experience in 'archive resources'.
Gareth Haulfryn Williams
(personal communication to archives listserv).
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