In the interests of adding to the debate about the issue Paul raises of
complacency within the profession in the face of a changing landscape, I
thought some of you may be interested to read a research study carried out
in Australia which looked at archivists and their temperaments in comparison
with the general personality characteristics of the Aussie population as a
whole.
The two key findings that struck me were that:
- archivists were found to be no less people orientated or communicative
than the average, which confounded the stereotypical view
- archivists were found to be much less strong in the general
characteristics required of leaders that the average. They were less
visionary, less able to conceputalise and generate abstract ideas, and to
think strategically.
The study can be found at:
http://www.archivists.org.au/events/conf99/pederson.html#arch
Katie Norgrove
>From: Brough Paul <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Brough Paul <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Invisibility of Archivists/Discussion List
>Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 12:03:28 +0100
>
>Aidan's point about being willing to delete is a good one but would be
>helped by high quality Subject lines (or for those of you who can't be
>bothered ANY Subject line - you know who you are!).
>
>
>
>But my experience of using archives-nra is that as a rule (I'm talking in
>gross generalities here) the more detailed the enquiry the better (though
>there's an exception in the popularity of strings based on emoting about
>ourselves/our pay/our dress sense/relationship to dust). And it's
>interesting that Michelle's response to the question is how she feels about
>this question personally, rather than what I understood Maria to be asking,
>which is does it matter that we have profession split in two in terms of
>funding, reporting structure and priorities? And I think that's a question
>worth posing because my local authority archive service now spends so much
>of its staff resource on outreach, partnership and delivering
>non-traditional outcomes that I even asked recently whether we could now
>argue that cataloguing was 'non-core' work. I'm not unhappy about that at
>all but it makes Maria's question an interesting one.
>
>
>
>But most of all I'm struck at how little appetite there is for hard-nosed
>discussion (maybe involving a little self-criticism) in the domain as a
>whole about how we do things. There seems to me to be remarkable
>complacency
>in the profession in the face of what must indisputably be the biggest set
>of threats and opportunities we've ever faced. My view is that if
>archivists
>aren't arming themselves with a more relevant set of competences then
>increasingly it will be logical, or even necessary, to recruit
>non-archivists with the appropriate 'personal qualities and attributes' and
>train them in the archival needs of the job not vice versa. And surely the
>ability to share information, learn from best practice, work together and
>so
>on are just some of those attributes?
>
>
>
>I'd love to see open discussion on archives-nra but I fear I'll continue to
>be disappointed.
>
>
>
>Paul
>
>
>
>Who do you think you are? Cornwall Record Office can help you find out with
>our fantastic sources for Cornish family history.
>
>Contact us at <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] .
>
>
>
>
>
>
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