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The relationship between a researcher and an archivist is rather like an arranged marriage — except it is a marriage that has been arranged by a dead person who probably never met either one of you. Still, if you want access to what lies beyond that archivist, you must get along with him or her, sometimes for months or even years.

In a situation like this one, it pays to know the types. (No, really — sometimes it literally pays. I’ll explain in a moment.) In my roughly three decades of experience working in archives, I think it is fair to say we can break archivists down by this basic taxonomy:

http://bit.ly/2Mnzy0q
http://bit.ly/2Mnzy0q+

At the request of The Chronicle of Higher Education, with which I’ve had a great publishing experience up until now, I wrote what was supposed to be an affectionate and humorous piece about types of archivists one might run into.

It has upset enough archivists that I can see it is offensive to many of them, and as far as I am concerned, it would be good if The Chronicle were to retract the piece. It is most certainly not worth harming people – especially archivists, who work hard for little recognition – as apparently it is doing.

I’ve worked in a lot of archives and libraries over the years, including the Lilly Library at Indiana University (where I got my Ph.D.), the Kinsey collection at IU, the Wangensteen Historical Library at the University of Minnesota, Special Collections at Michigan State University, the Galter Library’s rare books collection at Northwestern University’s medical school, University of North Carolina’s archives on the Bunker family, the Mutter Museum and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, the Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris), and, more recently, the Library of Congress, to name a few.

http://bit.ly/2LSwFbE
http://bit.ly/2LSwFbE+

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