In some ways, Martin makes us sound like British Gas or BT, trying to win back those customers who switched years ago, by offering new products, levels of service or simply lower prices.

 

In this debate we perhaps need to think, as Nigel pointed out, about why we exist in the first place, and what our role really is.

 

We exist to serve our employers, to assist them in compliance with their statutory responsibilities for record keeping.  Domesday Book is still a valuation list, and Magna Carta a tenancy agreement, although admittedly on a slightly larger scale, and, at this distance, a touch more significant in the general scheme of things.  

 

Our role, in a continuum sense, relates to selection, preservation and access.  Access is a consequence of the other two.  It may be permitted or not permitted, but it definitely comes in third.

 

Losing sight of the first two elements is perhaps a consequence of our pre-occupation with the third: community archives and genealogical tourism are not the main purpose of our existence, and perhaps our employers and the sector need to be reminded.

 

Recent postings to the Canadian and Australian archives lists are testimony to the consequences of disconnection with our main purpose and our employers’ business.

 

 

 

I've followed the postings about the impact of MLA's vision for archives and the importance of participating in debate with interest, and would like to add to it.

Increasingly we live in a political culture of mistrust of the Professional. Archivists, librarians, teachers, judges and many others are regarded by politicians and opinion formers - some of the all important stakeholders - as in it for themselves, more concerned to preserve their perceived vested interests rather than in serving the public. Professionalism seems to have become equated with restricted practices and and resistence to change, which has therefore (so we are told) to be imposed rather than generated from within the professions.

"Provider capture" is an accusation banded about - most frequently aabout the teaching profession I understand - but implicitly about many others including, perhaps our own and our sister professions in the MLA domain. It has become more credible to many than that fading ethos, Public Service.

The only profession seemingly immune to this is Accountancy and allied trades - and perhaps the Law, but not once one achieves judicial status.

We live in the Age of the Generalist - and the Generalist is often a consultant, frequently from a financial background. My own limited experience of working with consultants in archives has been positive, but this has clearly not been the case with some colleagues.

The upshot of this seems to be that politicians, government agencies and so on have almost a knee-jerk suspicion of professional advice. There is no automatic acceptance that, say, archivists know best what users of record offices need and want. This in itself is arguably a healthy development - and certainly we can all learn a lot about the development of services through working with professionals in other domains, outside the sector and with non-users of archives. The consultant has a place in all this. However perhaps this has gone too far, and the concept of provider capture bubbles beneath the MLA paper Marie Sienkiewicz cited earlier in the week, just as it does beneath many other policy documents issued by central, regional and local government.

I don't know how we came to this - but I'm sure Paul Brough is right when he says that we need to engage in the debates and bring our professionalism to the table. We do have much to contribute and Justin Cavernelis-Frost assures us that MLA will listen. Like all professions, we must adapt to changing circumstances, whether its the privatisation of family history or digitisation. Perhaps by demonstrating that we are a flexible profession which can adapt from within we can earn back some of the respect that we, along with most other professions, seem to have lost from some of our stakeholders.

Martin Taylor
..expressing my own views rather than those of Hull City Council

 

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