Martin Taylor raises an interesting point about the role of the Society. To take his "extreme example" to its conclusion, the remit of the Royal College of Surgeons is confined to education, training, research and auditing clinical effectiveness. The General Medical Council is responsible for registering and licensing surgeons to practice. It would seem that the Society wants to be both but without the power to enforce the GMC part of such a remit. Raising our standards is good for all of us individually and for the profession generally but trying to turn ourselves into a body equivalent to the GMC, the engineering institutions or their ilk is beyond the current or likely future remit of the Society. We are not in a position to act as a regulatory body therefore Colin's suggestion of a "preference statement" seems wiser.
On a more basic note and in the light of the current review, perhaps we ought to be asking more basic questions such as why are so many qualified practising archivists not even members of the Society of Archivists. We have some fairly fundamental questions to ask of ourselves during this review.
It too am a "pre-1996" registered archivist, but live in hope that eleven years experience in the profession is not wasted compared to a post-1996 qualified archivist! We too have something to offer, including running the Society.
Nick Mays
RMSA and Deputy Archivist, News International plc
These are, of course, my own views and not those of my employer.
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